Heart for the Poor: Mother Teresa Born 100 years ago
A Mass was held at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity – the order of nuns that Mother Teresa founded 60 years ago on the 100th anniversary of her birth. She was known as the “Saint of the Gutters” for her life’s work with the sick and destitute of Kolkata.
Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), was a Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship.
By the 1970s, she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.
Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary:
“Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. ‘You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,’ the Tempter kept on saying … Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.”
Prayer: Father God we are not all called to live a life of Mother Teresa, but we do know that her heart for the poor must resonate with yours. Her commitment to a simple life is an inspiration to 1,000′s who now carry on her work. Let us dwell on her story, that it might even in a small way become in part of our lives. Amen
Richard Barter
