Reflection & Quotes

REFLECTION:

As a cradle Catholic, I was immediately exposed to the importance of selfless giving and maintaining an incessant respect for humanity. Those values can certainly be transcribed to the life and work of Mother Teresa. Her initiatives and accomplishments became the cornerstone from which I started to question my own view of what it meant to act courageously and to do good acts throughout my surroundings.

A prayer that Mother Teresa often referred to as one of her favorites also happens to be a prayer that I find very motivating:

Lead me from death to life,
from lies to truth
Lead me from despair to hope
from fear to trust
Lead me from hatred to love
from war to peace
Let peace fill our heart, our world
our universe with peace. Amen

Mother Teresa sought out the poorest of the poor, those who had lost the will or the means to protect and care for themselves; and she graciously committed her whole life’s work to their well-being. Such commitment requires more than dedication, love, and faith. In addition, Mother Teresa illustrated the value of having an open heart even in the face of adversity and fear. The importance of teaching others how to give themselves to the will and work of God was one of the many inspiring lessons Mother Teresa left for the following generations to learn. Her actions constructively questioned the social structures that have existed between the unprotected poor masses and the often negligent, more affluent masses. After reflecting on Mother Teresa’s undertakings, I continue to admire her belief that caring for a person in need is not burdensome, but expected. When she welcomed all into her arms (irregardless of tangible differences), she truly became an instrument of God’s love. Instead of constantly preaching sermons of love, Mother Teresa became a prime example of how the power of love could be a sufficient source of healing.

QUOTES:

“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked, and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.”

Contribution--Mother Teresa

CONTRIBUTION:

· On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission to start her own order “The Missionaries of Charity”, whose primary task was to love and care for those people who had no one to look after them.

· The order provides food for the needy and operates hospitals, schools, orphanages, youth centers, and shelters for lepers and the dying poor. It now has branches in 50 Indian cities and a number of countries in African, Asia, and Latin America.

· In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the “Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart) Home for Dying Destitutes” in Calcutta. She and her fellow nuns gathered dying Indians off the streets of Calcutta and brought them to this home to care for them during their last days.

· Mother Teresa also organized schools and orphanages for the poor. The Brothers of Charity—the male companion to the Sisters of Charity—was formed in the mid 1960s to run homes for the dying.

· The leper colony Mother Teresa founded with the winnings from her 1971 Pope Paul XXIII Peace Prize has offered a place for outcasts to find acceptance.

· When she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she convinced the committee to cancel the official banquet and used that money to buy meals for 15,000 poor.

· In 1980, one of her first visits as a Nobel Laureate was to Skopje where Mother Teresa was declared a “distinguished citizen of Skopje.” This was in part because a few months earlier, she had opened a house for elderly homeless people—the first time her Order had been able to operate in a communist country.

· In 1985, she opened the first church-sponsored hospice for patients with AIDS in New York City.

· Accomplishments noted in the last two decades of her active life:

o At the start of the 1980s the Missionaries of Charity boasted 140 slum schools, a daily feeding program for nearly 50,000 people at 304 centers, 70 homes protecting 4,000 children, about 1,000 adoptions a year were arranged, 12,000 poor women were taught to earn their living, and many more.

ACCOLADES:

· For her work among the people of India, the Indian government gave her the Padmashree ("Magnificent Lotus") Award in September of 1962.

· By September of 1970 Mother Teresa received the Good Samaritan Award in Boston, and accepted an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at a degree ceremony in Washington (the first of many honorary degrees to be conferred on her in the coming years.

· In 1971 she received the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize.

· In 1972 the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.

· In April 1973 Mother Teresa traveled to London to receive the first Templeton Award for Progress in Religion.

· In October of 1979 the Nobel Committee pronounced Mother Teresa as that year’s recipient of the Peace Prize. She received the Nobel Peace Prize for promoting peace and brotherhood among the nations.

· In 1985 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Ronald Reagan.