Mother Teresa’s legacy of loving service to the poor

BLESSED Teresa of Calcutta – the popular Mother Teresa – was remembered by Catholics all over the world, including the Philippines, on her 105th birth anniversary on August 26. The Catholic Church regards her a universal symbol of God’s mercy and love for the poor and forgotten.

Mother Teresa was called “saint of the gutters” because of her charitable works with the poor and the sick, through the congregation she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, that runs orphanages, hospices, mobile clinics, and refugee centers for orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, battered women, elderly, homeless, and those suffering from HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis in 133 countries, including the Philippines.

The saintly life of Mother Teresa and the values she stands for – love of God, selfless service to humanity, and compassion – inspire Catholics worldwide. Filipinos have a special attachment to her; she visited the Philippines three times: In 1976, she set up Alay ng Puso (Home for Sick and Malnourished Children) in Binondo; in 1977, she inaugurated the Immaculate Heart of Mary Home for Sick and Destitute in Tondo; and in 1984, she was guest of Rotary International. Her bust, a gift from the Indian government, was unveiled on July 16, 2013 at University of Santo Tomas, which she visited while in the country in 1977 and 1984.

Born in 1910 Albanian parents in Skopje, Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman Empire), Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu at age 18 joined the Loreto Sisters of Dublin, and became a novitiate in Darjeeling, India. She took her first religious vows in 1931, choosing the name Teresa, and her solemn vows in 1937. She served for 20 years at Loreto Community in Calcutta, becoming its administrator in 1944. Dressed in white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian woman) she started working in the slums in 1948, helped by volunteers who became the core of the Missionaries of Charity; she was its superior general from 1950 to 1997.

She received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969, the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding in 1962, the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971, the Albert Schweitzer International Prize in 1975; and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She was given a state funeral in 1997, her body taken in procession through Calcutta on a carriage that had borne the bodies of two great Indian leaders – Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

The United Nations designated her death anniversary on September 5 as International Day of Charity. She is the patron of World Youth Day. She was beatified on October 19, 2003, by St. John Paul II, who called her “an icon of the Good Samaritan.”