RELIGION: Mother Teresa’s Nuns Remain Faithful Followers

By Sujoy Dhar Reprint | | Print |

Sujoy Dhar

CALCUTTA, India, Sep 8 1999 (IPS) - Its two years since the passing away of Mother Teresa and her worldwide flock of sari-clad nuns has grown, according to her India-born successor Sister Nirmala.

New centres opened this year in Kazakhstan and Finland for the first time. “We have opened at least 28 new centres worldwide this year bringing the total number of MOC (Missionaries of Charity) centres to 640 across 183 countries,” the globe- trotting nun says.

“When Mother left us the immediate challenge was to cope with the challenge of her physical absence. Now everyday it is a big challenge to live up to what Mother has taught us though by God’s grace and cooperation we are facing them,” she adds.

The nuns of the Roman Catholic order founded in 1947 by Mother Teresa, who died in Calcutta Sep. 5, 1997, are dedicated to serving the destitute and the dying, orphans and abandoned men, women and children.

Mother House, the headquarters of the religious order of 4,000 nuns here, attracts streams of visitors from India and abroad. While Mother Teresa was alive world leaders would file to meet her.

The MOC says that most foreign dignitaries to the city continue to make the customary visit. “After all we have Mother’s tomb here,” says the very modest Sister Nirmala who was elected the Superior General in a secret ballot in March 1997.

“I don’t want to single out visits by important people. But they all come and pay their obeisance to Mother,” she adds. Mother Teresa was buried at the MOC headquarters on Calcutta’s A.J.C. Bose Road in a funeral attended by world leaders and watched round the world on television.

Now the MOC has begun the canonisation process of the Albanian-born nun who in her twenties came to India to teach and never went back. She is ascribed with miraculous, healing powers and Pope John Paul, who is due in India for a visit in November this year will be meeting with the MOC.

Hundreds of other less well-known also troop to the destitute homes and centres which became pilgrimages during the Nobel laureate’s life-time. Many stay on as “volunteers”, tending to the orphans, crippled, sick, lepers and destitutes from the streets of Calcutta.

Most seek the tremendous life force of Mother Teresa that remains even after her death rather than her Roman Catholic religious beliefs that came under sharp attack from critics, among them British author Christopher Hitchens.

“I feel wonderful working here and in just two days I think I have become more mature as a person. I can feel the sheer joy of the ability to help others and what Mother stood for,” declares Yale Wexler, an ebullient 14-year-old from Montreal in Canada.

At an age when they can think of nothing but having a good time, Wexler is hard at work, nursing and cleaning spastic and crippled children at the Shishu Bhavan or the children’s home.

“In Canada we’d heard about Mother’s work but not much,” she said. “When some family friends who were in the city in June last year told us how they served here during their stay, I thought why not spend the last 10 days of my vacation here.”

Volunteering at Shishu Bhavan since August is a 23-year-old medical student from Japan, Noriko. “In Japan Mother is well known … and learning about her work I always felt that I should come to Calcutta to work for the suffering souls and also understand what was the driving force of Mother.”

The physically disabled seven-month-old baby that Noriko’s tending in her lap has been adopted by a couple from Belgium, a nun says. “There are groups coming from Spain and Belgium to adopt babies from here,” she adds.

“So long we remain faithful there will be visitors because everywhere in the world people are in search of the meaning of life. Here they see and touch God by serving the poor,” Sister Nirmala says philosophically.

People of all faiths and religions flock to Mother Teresa’s tomb. “I am a Protestant but to me it does not matter much whether she was a Catholic or Protestant. I am touched by her work,” says Francois Marie, a French tourist.

He says that one of the reasons for his visit to Calcutta was to see the MOC headquarters. He knew nothing of Mother Teresa’s critics, he added when asked.

Meanwhile, Hitchens, the author of the controversial ‘The Missionary Position” on Mother Teresa said last month that her

proposed sainthood was an “insult to the millions to whom she brought no relief but rather an additional burden” in an interview with the Indian news magazine ‘Outlook’.

Like her iconised predecessor, Sister Nirmala also turns the other cheek to critics. “Let them say what they have to say. There would be criticism and I accept it as part of life. There is no anger,” she almost echoes Mother Teresa.

Support continues to pour in. “We don’t ask anybody to raise funds for us because we believe it is the God who would provide us with money to do our work. So long we remain poor, chaste and obedient, God would provide …”