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Show A21l ____ The SaltLakeTribune MOTHER TERESA Sunday, September 7, 1997 Lack of Love Within the Family Is the Greatest Tragedy in Today’s Harried World Editer’s Note: Thefollowing is a conden- sation of an essay by Mother Theresa on the love of children. It is excerpted from her book, No Greater Love, published this year and made exclusively available to The Salt Lake Tribune by the Los Angeles ‘Times Syndicate. BYMOTHER TERESA I have a conviction that I want to share with you. Love begins at home, and every co-workershouid try to make sure that deep family love abidesin his or her home. Only whenlove abides at homecanweshareit with our next-door neighbor. Thenit will show forth and you will be able to say to them, “Yes, love is here.” And then youwill be able to shareit with everyone around you. One day I founda little girl in the street, so I took her to our children's home. We have a nice place and good food there. We gave herclean clothes, and we madeher as happyas we could. After a few hours, thelittle girl ran away. I looked for her, but I couldn't find her anywhere. Then after a few days, I found her again. And, again, I brought her to our home and told a sis- ter, “Sister, please, follow this child wherever she goes.” The little girl ran awayagain. But the a baby carriage. A young woman was pushing the carriage, and I crossed the was going and why she kept running riage. To my terrible surprise, there was no child in the carriage. There was a little dog! Apparently the hunger in the street just to see the child in the car sister followed to find out where she way. She followed the little girl and discov- ered thatthelittle one’s motherwasliving under a tree in the street. The moth- er had placed twostones there and did her cooking underthat tree. ‘Thesister sent word to me, and I went face, because she was with her mother, whenI found her there with her mother, in the street, they were smiling. Why? Because they were family Right from the beginning, since love begins at home, we should teach our children to love one another at home. they should betoday, then, when tomor- come homethey are not welcomed with love or with a smile. If we help our children to be what row becomestoday, they will have the necessary courageto face it with greater love. From the very beginning, since love begins at home, we should teach mother, when they see the parents’ love heartof the family. Children need their children, so that they can give that love mothers. If the motheris there, the chil- drenwill be there, too. For the family to be whole, the children and the mother the future. I cannot remembernowin whatcity I was, but I do rememberthatI did not see any children on the street. I missed the children very badly. While I was walking downthestreet, suddenly I saw our children to love one another. They canlearnthis onlyfromtheir father and must find our children again and bring them back home. Mothers are at the This will strengthen our children, so that they can give that love to others in . So not having a child, she looked for a substitute. She found a dog. I love dogs myself very much, but still I cannot bear seeing a dog given the place ofa child. Then they go back to the streets. We She answered,“J could notlive with- out my mother. She loves me.” That little girl was happier to have the meager food her mother was cooking in the street than all the thingsI had given her. While the child was with us, I could scarcely see a smile on her face. But happiness in the world... Today we have no time. Fathers and mothersare so busy that when children Children have lost their place in the family. Children are so very, very lonely! When children come home from school, there is no one to greet them. who loved her and was making special food for her in thatlittle open place. I asked thelittle girl, “Howis it that you would not stay with us? You had so manybeautiful things in our home.” time to enjoy each other, and the lack of love causes so much suffering and un- heart of that womanhadto besatisfied Peopleareafraid of having children there. I found joy on thatlittle girl’s Wehavenotimefor our children. We have notimefor each other. Thereis no also need the fatherto be presentin the home. If we can help to bring themall back together, we will be doing a beautiful thing for God The world todayis upside-down. It is suffering so much because there is so little love in the home and in familylife. for each other. This will strengthen our to othersin the future People whoreallyandtruly love each other are the happiest people in the world. Wesee that with our very poor people. They love their children, and theylove their families. They may have very little, in fact. they may not have anything, but they are happy people. A child is the greatest of God’s gifts to a family because it is the fruit of the parents’ love. Mother Teresa Left a Legacy: One of History’s Truest Saints Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxiu in Albania in 1910, she ieft home at age 18 to entertheSisters of Loreto, an Irish order of nuns with a mission in India. She By the time she died last week, Mother Teresa had becomeoneof history's truestsaints, a living symbol of Christlike devotion to the poor, the sick and the hungry. A small womanwhostoodless than5 feettall, her decades of labor in the slumsof Calcutta helped awaken the world’s conscience to depths of human poverty and loneliness. For this she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. At the Blessed Katharine Drexel Guild in Bensa- lem, Pa., near Philadelphia, there was scoffing Friday at the very suggestion Mother Teresa will someday be declared a saint. “She’s already a saint,” said a woman at the Guild offices whoidentified herself as Louise.If the Vatican someday declares Mother Teresa or Philadelphia’s Katharine Drexel to be official saints of the Catholic Church,“that's for us,” Louise said with a laugh. “They're already in heaven. Everybody knows it,” she said.” Both women loved fully and completely unselfishly.” Missionaries of Charity sisters look down from the homeof MotherTeresain Calcutta. Pope John PaulIf, who called for prayers and said Mass for her Saturday, said through a spokesman that the 87-year-old nun was“a glowing exampleof how the love of God can be transformedinto love of one’s neighbor.” took her religious nameafter St. Thereseof Lisieux, the 19th-century French sister known as “TheLittle Flower.” Sister Teresa took her final vows in 1939, butit was not until 1946 that she felt a special calling to leave the convent and devote herself to the poor. God, she would explain later, “wanted me to be poorandto love himin thedistressing disguise of the poorestof the poor.” Given permission to venture outside the mission. she began by opening a school and visiting sick, and Andrew Madichini he Associated Press Pope John PaulII speaks in Rome of Mother Teresa as a “luminous example”for humanity. in 1950 founded her own order, the Missionaries of Charity, with just 12 othersisters. In 1954, she opened the Houseof the Pure Heart, a hospice for those unfortunates abandoned on the streets of Calcutta. She and theothersisters washed lepers’ ulcers, sheltered infants, housed the insane and fed the hungry. Herfame grew swiftly, and with it flowed financial contributions that allowed her to open convents and contemplative branches of her order around the world. By the time she won the NobelPrize, she was already celebrated as one of the world’s great hu- manitarians. Ather death the Missionaries of Charity had more than 500 missions in 100 countries. Her order opened oneof the first hospices for AIDS victims. Inevitably, she drew critics. Somefaulted her for failing to criticize or combat the deepinstitutional causes of poverty, such as greed or exploitative capi talism. Others complained that her campaign: againstartificial birth control and abortion perpett ated poverty. Andstill others groused when she sat for photos with such corruptand brutal public fig ures as ThomasKeating, the convicted savings-andloan manipulator, and Haiti’s notorious strongman Jean-Claude Duvalier. But she always dismissed her crities. “Go and see what we do,” she would say In India’s City of Joy, Mother Teresa Tears for Mother Teresa THE WASHINGTONPOST CALCUTTA,India — Thecity Saturday. nuns whoworkaround the world more time to reach Calcutta and also to give the order's members, The day after the Roman Catholic missionary’s death from heart to herloss. of joy wept over Mother Teresa failure at 87, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, clad in women’s saris and men’s wraparound lungis, filed into the headquarters of her Missionaries of Charity to view her body in an upstairs room. Some emergedwiping tears from their eyesin griefat the loss of Calcutta’s most famouscitizen. “T used to love her. I used to By Death of Mother Teresa @ Continued From A-1 and needy. ‘Anguished wails rose from @ crowd of Teresa's mourners Sunday as Mother body was carried in a simple wooden coffin from Calcutta. Missionaries of Charity nuns surroundit in ed the coffin as pall bearers placed of Cal‘an ambulance for the trip to one cutta’s largest churches, where Mother week ‘Teresa will lie in state for the next A silver plaque on the coffin lidread RIP. “Our dearest Mother Teresa, outside the ‘Two hundred people stood mission, headquarters of Mother Teresa's waiting for the start of the procession Through bearing her body to the church, singing the building's open windows, | 4 her home and the headquarters of her Missionaries of Charity order. The date of her funeral had been changed from Wednesdayto Sept. 13. A government spokesmansaid Prime Min- ister Inder Kumar Gujral had ordered a The site of the funeral still has not been announcedas the order searches for a place in the cramped city that could accom- modate hundredsof thousandsof large cathedrals. Where Mother Teresa will be breaking custom, said it will ac- her order's nuns want her in- day to Saturday. Her body, embalmed Saturday, is to be moved could be heard. Thesite of Mother Teresa's funeral was not announced. But she will be buried at the convent in central Calcutta that was the public a chance to express their grief,” one sourcesaid miles away to pay her respects. India’s government declared a cord the Nobel Peace Prize winner a state funeral, which has been rescheduled from Wednes- Void Left : “The sisters had troubleletting go” emotionally of their leader and “wanted to give members of mourners. Becausethereare only about 100,000 Catholics among 10 day of national mourning and, million Calcuttans,thecity has no church on the scale of Europe's buriedis also undecided. Manyof terredat the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, which would in effect convert the simple four-storybuildinginto ashrine. Mother Teresa founded the Sunday to St Thomas Church Missionaries of Charityin Caleut- here and placed on view for mourners, who are expectedto include Prime Minister I.K. Gujral. the young nunof Albanian parentage won over residents with her compassion and respect for Sources close to the order said Unlike other Nobel Peace Prize winners, and devotees, moretimeto adjust look at her picture and get strength, so her death has de- pressed me,” said Karuna Mandal, a Hindu who came from 20 “Pavel Rahman/The Associated Preas Saturday. Nunspay their respects to Mother Teresa at a church in Dhaka,India, on the funeral was delayed to give @ people's saint 1910-1997 ta’s slumsa half-century ago, and ‘We have been creatadfolve and to be ined! “Wecan do no great things, only small with great love:” “intense love does not measure; just gives” “Hfwe really want to love, we must lea how to forgive.” ‘Giveuntil it hurts” “Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little thingsis a great cP thing + ‘We must make ourhomes centors of compassion and forgive endiessi AssocintedPress their culture. She quickly learned Bengali, the regional language, and becamea naturalized citizen of India in 1948. Saturday's editions of Calcutta’s largest English dailies reflected this city’s reverence for her. “Mother is dead,” the Statesman, India’s oldest newspaper, declared in a front-page headline. @ Mass in Utah A memorial Mass for Mother Teresawill be celebrated at 12:30 p.m. Wednesdayat the Cathedral of The Madeleine, 331 E. South Temple. Pictures of Mother Teresa will be displayed, and flowers from mournersare welcome. state funeral, an honor normally con- ferred only on serving p' and prime ministers. Her bodywilllie in state at St. Thomas Church until the services, A resolution adopted by the Indian Cabinet said Mother Teresa's life was “devoted to bringing love, peace and joy to the people whomthe world generally shunned," In Italy, Pope John Paul II celebrated a Mass for her on Saturdayat his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. President Clinton stepped off the greens of a Martha's Vineyard golf course to call Mother Teresa of Calcutta a woman of passion and compassion, “one of the giants of our times.” “She led by serving and showed us the simple power of stunning humility,” he said.‘She gave comfort to the poor, the suffering and the dying, and served as an inspiration and a challengeto all of us,” Queen ElizabethII took time before the funeral of Princess Diana on Saturday to send condolences. “At this time of mourning for us in the United Kingdom, it was with deep sadness that I learned of the death of Mother Teresa,” the queen said. The Rey. Charles Curran, ethics professor at Southern Methodist University, said Mother Teresa inspired this kind of praise because she represented the best of the Christian tradition, Dikas Daa/The Associated Press Mourners pray at Mother Teresa's missionary homein Calcutta on Saturday, , é |
