Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the destroyed hospital to evacuate the young patients. Mother Teresa received more than honours and awards during her lifetime including the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize in and Nobel Peace Prize in During her humanitarian missions, Mother Teresa suffered from numerous diseases and injuries.
She had pneumonia, malaria, suffered two heart attacks, and even broke her collar bone. She worked for orphans, AIDS patients, refugees, blind, disabled, alcoholics, poor, homeless, victims of floods and epidemics and famine. Mother Teresa was canonised at a ceremony on September 4, in St. Mother Teresa Birth Anniversary: Mother Teresa took her religious vows on May 24, and chose to be named after Therese de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries.
Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and she received financial support from church organizations and the municipal authorities. On October 7, , Mother Teresa received permission from the Vatican to start her own order.
Vatican originally labeled the order as the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, and it later came to be known as the "Missionaries of Charity. The Missionaries of Charity, which began as a small order with 12 members in Calcutta, today has more than 4, nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin America, North America, Poland, and Australia.
The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela. Presently, the "Missionaries of Charity" has presence in more than countries. Mother Teresa's work has been recognized and acclaimed throughout the world, and she has received a number of awards and distinctions. On March 13, , Mother Teresa stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and passed away on September 5, , just 9 days after her 87th birthday. Following Mother Teresa's death, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization, or sainthood.
This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In , the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Teresa's picture.
The most scathing criticism of Mother Teresa can be found in Christopher Hitchens' book The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice , in which Hitchens argued that Mother Teresa glorified poverty for her own ends and provided a justification for the preservation of institutions and beliefs that sustained widespread poverty.
After several years of deteriorating health, including heart, lung and kidney problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5, , at the age of In , the Vatican recognized a miracle involving an Indian woman named Monica Besra, who said she was cured of an abdominal tumor through Mother Teresa's intercession on the one-year anniversary of her death in On December 17, , Pope Francis issued a decree that recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for her to be canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
The second miracle involved the healing of Marcilio Andrino, a Brazilian man who was diagnosed with a viral brain infection and lapsed into a coma. His wife, family and friends prayed to Mother Teresa, and when the man was brought to the operating room for emergency surgery, he woke up without pain and was cured of his symptoms, according to a statement from the Missionaries of Charity Father. Mother Teresa was canonized as a saint on September 4, , a day before the 19th anniversary of her death.
Pope Francis led the canonization mass, which was held in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. She made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created. He also told the faithful to follow her example and practice compassion. Since her death, Mother Teresa has remained in the public spotlight. For her unwavering commitment to aiding those most in need, Mother Teresa stands out as one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century.
She combined profound empathy and a fervent commitment to her cause with incredible organizational and managerial skills that allowed her to develop a vast and effective international organization of missionaries to help impoverished citizens all across the globe.
Despite the enormous scale of her charitable activities and the millions of lives she touched, to her dying day, she held only the most humble conception of her own achievements.
Summing up her life in characteristically self-effacing fashion, Mother Teresa said, "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. By Mother Teresa's groups had more than two hundred different operations in over twenty-five countries around the world, with dozens more ventures on the horizon. The same year she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
In she persuaded President Fidel Castro — to allow a mission in Cuba. The characteristics of all of Mother Teresa's works—shelters for the dying, orphanages, and homes for the mentally ill—continued to be of service to the very poor.
In Mother Teresa sent her Missionaries of Charity into Russia and opened a home for acquired immune deficiency syndrome AIDS; an incurable disease that weakens the immune system patients in San Francisco, California.
In she returned home to Albania and opened a home in Tirana, the capital. At this time there were homes operating in India. Mother Teresa. Despite the appeal of this saintly work, all commentators remarked that Mother Teresa herself was the most important reason for the growth of her order and the fame that came to it.
Unlike many "social critics," she did not find it necessary to attack the economic or political structures of the cultures that were producing the terribly poor people she was serving.
For her, the primary rule was a constant love, and when social critics or religious reformers improvers chose to demonstrate anger at the evils of structures underlying poverty and suffering, that was between them and God. In the s and s Mother Teresa's health problems became a concern. She had a near fatal heart attack in and began wearing a pacemaker, a device that regulates the heartbeat.
In March , after an eight week selection process, sixty-three-year-old Sister Nirmala was named as the new leader of the Missionaries of Charity. Although Mother Teresa had been trying to cut back on her duties for some time because of her health, she stayed on in an advisory role to Sister Nirmala. Mother Teresa celebrated her eighty-seventh birthday in August, and died shortly thereafter of a heart attack on September 5, The world grieved her loss and one mourner noted, "It was Mother herself who poor people respected.
When they bury her, we will have lost something that cannot be replaced. In appearance Mother Teresa was both tiny and energetic. Her face was quite wrinkled, but her dark eyes commanded attention, radiating an energy and intelligence that shone without expressing nervousness or impatience. Conservatives within the Catholic Church sometimes used her as a symbol of traditional religious values that they felt were lacking in their churches.
By most accounts she was a saint for the times, and several almost adoring books and articles started to canonize declare a saint her in the s and well into the s. She herself tried to deflect all attention away from what she did to either the works of her group or to the God who was her inspiration. The Missionaries of Charity, who had brothers as well as sisters by the mids, are guided by the constitution Mother Teresa wrote for them.
0コメント