Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa, also known as Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu MC, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity. She was born Anjez Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Albania. She passed away on September 5, 1997.
She was born in Skopje, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire at the time. [b] At the age of 18, she went to Ireland, where she resided for most of her life. She was declared a saint by the Catholic Church on September 4, 2016, taking the name Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Her feast day is September 5, which commemorates the anniversary of her passing.
As of 2012, the religious order Missionaries of Charity, which Mother Teresa established, has more than 4,500 sisters spread throughout 133 nations. The church oversees homes for those suffering from leprosy, TB, and HIV/AIDS.
The group also manages orphanages, schools, mobile clinics, soup kitchens, pharmacies, children's and family counseling programs, and orphanages. Members swear an additional vow in addition to their chastity, poverty, and obedience: "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor."
Numerous awards, such as the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, were given to Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa was a divisive figure both during her lifetime and after her passing. She was praised by many for her philanthropic work but derided for her stances on abortion and contraception as well as the subpar circumstances at her homes for the terminally ill.
In 1992, Navin Chawla's authorized biography of her was released. She has also been the focus of several other works. Mother Teresa and Saint Francis Xavier were appointed co-patrons of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta on September 6, 2017.
early years
Mother Teresa's birth name was Anjez Gonxhe (or Gonxha) Bojaxhiu (Anjez is a cognate of Agnes; Gonxhe is an Albanian word that means "rosebud" or "little flower"). She was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Ottoman Empire (now the capital of North Macedonia), to a Kosovar Albanian family. The day following her birth, she was christened in Skopje.[8] Later on, she saw her baptism on August 27 as her "true birthday".
She was Nikoll and Dranafile Bojaxhiu's (Bernai's) youngest child. When she was eight years old, her father, who was active in Ottoman North Macedonia's Albanian community politics, passed away. He was born in Prizren, now in Kosovo, although his parents were from Mirdita, now in Albania. Her children think her mother was from the hamlet of Bishtazhin, which is close to Gjakova.
Anjez was attracted by tales of missionaries' lives and work in Bengal when she was a little child, according to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas. By the time she was twelve, she was sure that she should devote her life to religion. On August 15, 1928, when she worshiped at the Black Madonna of Vitina-Letnice shrine, a frequent pilgrimage destination, her determination grew stronger.
Anjez left her family in 1928 when she was 18 years old to study English with the Sisters of Loreto at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland. Her goal was to become a missionary because the Sisters of Loreto in India taught in English. She never saw her sister or mother again. Prior to 1934, when they relocated to Tirana, her family had resided in Skopje.
In Darjeeling, in the lower Himalayas, where she learned Bengali and worked as a teacher at St. Teresa's School close to her convent, she started her novitiate after arriving in India in 1929. On May 24, 1931, she made her first religious commitment. Because a sister in the monastery had already selected that name, she opted for its Spanish form, Teresa, in honor of Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missions.
In accordance with Loreto tradition, Teresa professed her solemn vows on May 14, 1937, while working as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta. She adopted the title "Mother." She worked there for about 20 years until being named headmistress in 1944. Although Mother Teresa liked her time as a teacher at the school, the poverty in Calcutta gradually distressed her.
The city saw hardship and death as a result of the Bengal famine in 1943, and a period of Muslim-Hindu violence began with the Direct Action Day in August 1946.
Mother Teresa had a summons from her inner conscience in 1946 while traveling by rail to Darjeeling to help the underprivileged people of India on behalf of Jesus. She requested permission to leave the school, which she later granted. She established the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 and decided on the order's uniform, a white sari with two blue borders.
international benevolence
Mother Teresa declared, "I am Albanian by blood. Indian by nationality. I am a nun who is Catholic by faith. In terms of my calling, I am a part of the world. I completely belong to the Heart of Jesus in terms of my heart. She spoke Bengali, Albanian, Serbian, English, and Hindi well and occasionally traveled outside of India for humanitarian causes.
Mother Teresa mediated a brief cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants in 1982 during the height of the Siege of Beirut in order to rescue 37 children who were stranded in a frontline hospital. She crossed the conflict zone to the hospital in the company of Red Cross personnel to remove the young patients.
Mother Teresa broadened her outreach to communist nations that had rejected the Missionaries of Charity as Eastern Europe began to become more accessible in the late 1980s. Unfazed by criticism for her stances against abortion and divorce, she started hundreds of initiatives, saying, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." After the 1988 earthquake, she went to Armenia and met with Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov.
Mother Teresa traveled to help those in need in Ethiopia, those exposed to radiation in Chornobyl, and those affected by an earthquake in Armenia. She made her first trip back to Albania in 1991 and started the Missionaries of Charity Brothers house in Tirana.
The Missionaries of Charity ran 517 missions in more than 100 nations by 1996. The Missionaries of Charity now have thousands of sisters helping the "poorest of the poor" in 450 locations across the world. Initially, there were just twelve sisters. In New York City's South Bronx, the Missionaries of Charity founded their first house in the country. By 1984, the community had 19 homes operating around the nation.
India
Mother Teresa received a diplomatic passport from the Indian government under the name Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu. In 1962, she was awarded the Padma Shri, and in 1969, she was given the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding. She later got further honors from India, including the Bharat Ratna, which is the country's highest civilian honor, in 1980. Navin Chawla's official biography of Mother Teresa was released in 1992. She is revered as a divinity in Calcutta by certain Hindus.
On August 28, 2010, the Indian government released a commemorative 5-rupee coin (the amount Mother Teresa had when she landed in India) to mark the 100th anniversary of her birth. According to President Pratibha Patil, "Clad in a white sari with a blue border, she and the sisters of Missionaries of Charity became a symbol of hope to many—namely, the aged, the destitute, the unemployed, the diseased, the terminally ill, and those abandoned by their families."
Mother Teresa's reputation is not universally seen favorably in India. Group Chatterjee, a doctor from Calcutta who was born and raised there and spent years working as an activist in the city's slums before relocating to the UK, claimed that he "never even saw any nuns in those slums." In a 2003 book critical of Mother Teresa, the results of his investigation, which involved more than 100 interviews with volunteers, nuns, and other people associated with the Missionaries of Charity, were disclosed.
She was condemned by Chatterjee for fostering a "cult of suffering" and a false, unfavorable perception of Calcutta, embellishing the work carried out by her mission, and abusing the resources and privileges at her disposal. He said that following Mother Teresa's passing in 1997, several of the hygienic issues he had mentioned (such as the reuse of needles) got better.
No doubt there was poverty in Calcutta, but it was never a city of lepers and beggars, as Mother Teresa presented it, according to Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, the city's mayor from 2005 to 2010. He also claimed that she glorified illness rather than treating it and misrepresented the city.
In opposition to Mother Teresa on the Hindu right over the Christian Dalits, the Bharatiya Janata Party hailed her in death and sent an envoy to her burial. However, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad disagreed with the government's choice to give her a state funeral. "Her first duty was to the Church and social service was incidental," Secretary Giriraj Kishore said, accusing her of favoring Christians and holding "secret baptisms" of the dead.
The Indian weekly Frontline called the accusations "patently false" and stated that they had "made no impact on the public perception of her work, especially in Calcutta" in a front-page ode. The tribute's author praised Teresa's "selfless caring," enthusiasm, and boldness while criticizing her outspoken opposition to abortion and assertion that she is politically neutral.
Mother Teresa's goal, according to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh head Mohan Bhagwat in February 2015, was "to convert the person who was being served into a Christian." Bhagwat's judgment was backed by former RSS spokesperson M. G. Vaidhya, and the group said that the media had "distorted facts about Bhagwat's remarks."
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, CPI leader Atul Anjan, and Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien all objected to Bhagwat's assertion. During the tenure of D. S. Satyaranjan as registrar, the Senate of Serampore College (University), the nation's first modern university, conferred an honorary degree in 1991.
Political and social opinions
Abortion was specifically mentioned by Mother Teresa as "the greatest destroyer of peace today." Because there is nothing between me killing you and you killing me if a mother can kill her own kid.
After receiving the Peace Prize, Barbara Smoker of the secular humanist publication The Freethinker attacked Mother Teresa, claiming that she had diverted funding from practical solutions to India's difficulties in favor of promoting Catholic moral doctrines on abortion and contraception.
Mother Teresa remarked, "Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion, but also by thinking that other things like jobs or positions are more important than loving," during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
movie and literary
Books and documentaries
Something Beautiful for God, a 1969 documentary film and 1972 book by Malcolm Muggeridge, is about Mother Teresa. The movie is credited for bringing Mother Teresa to the notice of the West.
Hell's Angel, a 1994 documentary by Christopher Hitchens, asserts that Mother Teresa advised the poor to accept their lot in life while the affluent are shown to be God's chosen ones. The article The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens was inspired by this.
Amar Kumar Bhattacharya's short documentaries Mother of The Century (2001) and Mother Teresa (2002) explore Mother Teresa's life and humanitarian activities among India's impoverished. They were created by the Government of India's Films Division.
In the documentary Mother Teresa: No Greater Love (2022), which was made with extraordinary access to institutional archives, it is shown how the Missionaries of Charity are carrying out Mother Teresa's goal of serving Christ among the impoverished.
Dramatic television shows and movies
In the early 1990s, Mother Teresa starred in Bible Ki Kahaniyan, an Indian Christian television program based on the Bible that broadcast on DD National. She explained the significance of the Bible's message as she presented some of the episodes.[183]
Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor, which won an award at the 1997 Art Film Festival, starred Geraldine Chaplin as Mother Teresa.
In the 2003 Italian television drama Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Olivia Hussey portrays her. When it was re-released in 2007, it won a CAMIE.
In the 2014 movie The Correspondence, which was based on Mother Teresa's correspondence with Vatican priest Celeste van Exem, Juliet Stevenson played the role of Mother Teresa.
In the comic rap YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Mother Teresa—played by Cara Francis the FantasyGrandma—rapped against Sigmund Freud. The song was posted to YouTube on September 22, 2019.
Mother Teresa makes a brief cameo as one of 22's former mentors in the 2020 animated movie Soul.
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