How Mother Teresa changed the world
Sunday, September 4, 2016 was a historic day in the annals of Christendom with the raising of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the honours of the altar. The Mass of Canonisation, presided over by His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican, drew hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, including heads of states and governments. Across St Peter’s Square in the Vatican City where the ceremony took place, you could see people of all faiths gathered together to pay homage and respect to one of the world’s most cherished daughters, who taught us how to love and serve God in the poorest of the poor. Earlier in 2003, her beatification also drew a large crowd of people from all corners of the earth. The fact that the saintly Pope John Paul II was the celebrant at the Mass of Beatification made a huge difference. John Paul II and Mother Teresa have profound similarities. They are two great heroes of the modern world who were deeply on fire with divine love. They spent their lives - one a pope, the other a nun - loving and serving God in his children. In their encounters, it was a union of two hearts speaking to each other.
The fact that Mother Teresa was made a saint two years after Pope John Paul II (who beatified her) was himself made a saint is quite remarkable. It reminds us that in whatever state of life we are and in whatever vocation we lead, God has called us to pursue holiness of life in the midst of the world. The sanctification of daily life through work has been one of the most popularised teachings of Vatican II. It is firmly rooted in the universal call to holiness of all the baptized Christian faithful. Today, many ecclesial groups are making this call to holiness in the midst of the world the cornerstone of their spirituality and mission.
I was extraordinarily privileged to have a seat at the podium where Pope Francis presided over the Mass of Canonisation of Mother Teresa. It was a remarkable thing that Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari approved a Nigerian delegation to grace the occasion following an official invitation from the Vatican. Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs led this delegation and I had the honour of being a member of the delegation. Our seats were right in front of the location reserved for sovereign delegations. For an uncountable number of times I found myself gazing intently at the linen cloth portrait of Mother Teresa hanging over the high pillars of the entrance to the Basilica of St Peter. The unassuming simplicity, unimpeachable holiness and profound dedication of her life were all summarized in her clasped palms holding each other with a simple gaze looking down.
Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, to Albanian heritage. Her maiden name was Agnes GonxhaBojaxhiu. At the age of 18 she joined the Loreto Convent in Ireland to learn English as a postulant. Well known for its missionary work, the Loreto Order sent her to India. There, she made her final profession as a nun in May 1931, taking the name Teresa after St. Theresa of Lisiéux. Mother Teresa taught for some years at a school in Calcutta before founding the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. In addition to taking vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, members of the Missionaries of Charity promise to give wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor. The work of the Missionaries expanded globally (not without difficulties and challenges), and Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979.
In his homily at the Mass of Canonisation, Pope Francis extolled the heroic life of Mother Teresa, referring to her as “a generous dispenser of divine mercy.”In his words,“Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defence of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded. She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that ‘the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable.’ She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime… of poverty they created. For Mother Teresa, mercy was the ‘salt’ which gave flavour to her work, it was the ‘light’ which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering.”
The Holy Father continues: “Her mission to the urban and existential peripheries remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest of the poor. Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: may she be your model of holiness! I think, perhaps, we may have some difficulty in calling her ‘Saint Teresa’: her holiness is so near to us, so tender and so fruitful that we continue to spontaneously call her ‘Mother Teresa.’ May this tireless worker of mercy help us increasingly to understand that our only criterion for action is gratuitous love, free from every ideology and all obligations, offered freely to everyone without distinction of language, culture, race or religion. Mother Teresa loved to say, ‘Perhaps I don’t speak their language, but I can smile.’ Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer. In this way, we will open up opportunities of joy and hope for our many brothers and sisters who are discouraged and who stand in need of understanding and tenderness.”
In its December 4, 1989 edition, TIME magazine published a lengthy interview conducted by its New Delhi bureau chief, Edward Desmond, in 1988. In the interview, Mother Teresa revealed her thoughts on the reason for her success. “We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us to put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the cripple, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the