Letter from a saint

AGNES GONXHA Bojaxhiu was born on Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. She was the youngest of three children of a devoutly Catholic family. At an early age, she decided to become a nun, joining the Sisters of Loreto and taking the name “Teresa” after St. Therese of Lisieux. Upon making her final vows, she chose the title of “Mother” and since then, it is as “Mother Teresa” that the world has come to know about Skopje’s most famous daughter.

On Sunday, Mother Teresa was canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in ceremonies presided over by Pope Francis at the Vatican in Rome. It came on the eve of her 19th death anniversary on Sept. 5, 1997.

What is the connection between Mother Teresa and St. Therese of Lisieux?

Mother Teresa’s work as a missionary was greatly influenced by the writings of St. Therese who was the “Patroness of the Missions.” In her autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” St. Therese wrote that “I would like to travel all over the world, making Your name known and planting Your cross on heathen soil. I would want to preach the Gospel on all five continents and in the most distant lands all at once.”

That is exactly what Mother Teresa set out to do; and when the end came, she had organized a worldwide network of close to 600 missions in more than 100 countries around the globe, operating orphanages, refugee centers for the poor, the sick and the dying, hospices and other facilities to care for those felt unloved and neglected.

Perhaps this is one aspect of Mother Teresa’s life which is not fully appreciated. In today’s corporate world, an operation such as that carried out by the Missionaries of Charity would require a high-powered board of directors, an executive vice president, several senior vice presidents, regional heads, layers of lower echelon staff members, and maybe full-time PR consultants and fundraisers.

Mother Teresa was all of these rolled into one. For one who looked so frail, so fragile, and so powerless, her tremendous accomplishments showed how appearances can be so deceiving. Mother Teresa was the manager extraordinaire and her single-minded devotion and strength of purpose in caring for the less fortunate in our society made her the most successful missionary ever in the history of the Church.

Among the many stories that have been told about Mother Teresa, my favorite concerns her views on her citizenship status. In 1949, after many years of living in India, she opted to become an Indian citizen. She once said of herself, “By blood and origin, I am Albanian, but by citizenship, I am Indian.”

In 1979 she won the Nobel Peace Prize for “work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress in the world.” In honoring her, the Nobel Committee explained that poverty also represented a serious threat to world peace.

When she returned to India after receiving the award, she was asked by a journalist if she now considered herself a citizen of the world. Her simple reply was, “I am a citizen of India.” Another media person pressed her on the issue saying, “Do you really consider yourself an Indian?” Mother Teresa replied, “Yes, and I feel Indian to the most profound depths of my soul but there is a difference.” Facing the Indian gentleman who had posed the question, she added, “You are Indian by accident of birth. I am an Indian by choice.”

In 1950 she founded the congregation known as the Missionaries of Charity. Its members take the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but the vow of poverty is observed more strictly than in other congregations because, in Mother Teresa’s words, “To be able to love the poor and know the poor, we must be poor ourselves.” Aside from the three traditional vows, they also take a unique fourth vow: “To give wholehearted, free service to the poorest of the poor—to Christ in his distressing disguise.” As Mother Teresa explained, “This vow means that we cannot work for the rich; neither can we accept money for what we do. Ours is to be a free service and to the poor.”

For a while the Missionaries of Charity worked only in Calcutta. But after developing a large number of trained workers, they branched out of Calcutta, moving into New Delhi and other Indian cities. As she traveled abroad, Mother Teresa started small communities in other countries like Sri Lanka, Australia, Venezuela and Italy. In the Philippines, the congregation has its offices at 1030 Tayuman Street, Tondo, Manila.

* * *

Many years ago while serving as the commissioner of Customs, I had the great honor and privilege of receiving in my office Mother Teresa and other sisters from the local Missionaries of Charity. She came to personally thank the bureau for its assistance in the expeditious release of donations for the local congregation. My recollection of her visit is that of a tiny woman, maybe less than five feet tall, slightly stooped but with an alert and magnetic personality. There was no doubt that we were in the presence of a very special individual, a humble and saintly person.

She could just have picked up the phone or sent one of her representatives, but instead she insisted on making a visit herself.

A few weeks later, I received through the regular mail a personal letter from Mother Teresa. It was to reiterate once again her gratitude for the assistance rendered her fellow missionaries in the release of relief goods from overseas benefactors. The letter was accompanied by a commemorative card baring her picture holding an infant in her arms. The letter closed with “May God bless you all, Mother Teresa, M.C.”

While reading the letter, the thought crossed my mind that here was a person who not only cared but also remembered. In a thankless job like Customs, the note served as a ray of sunshine and a breath of fresh air, and remains today one of my treasured mementos of government service. Incidentally, her canonization day happens to coincide with my wife’s 80th birth anniversary.

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