Mother Teresa: An Epitome of Love and Compassion - Essay Example

Mother Teresa: An Epitome Of Love And Compassion Introduction Bringing joy, fulfillment and healing for the people who did not have food to eat, clothes to wear and home to live was the aim of Mohter Teresa (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.5). At the same time, she wanted it to do it with dignity, compassion and love, so that the people who were being helped should not feel as a burden on others and should not feel unwanted (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.5). She was an example of strong conviction in faith and always believed that if people perform an act with humanity and shower great love, then nothing is impossible to achieve (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.5). In the year 1969, while giving interview to TV anchor and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, she said, “ I have come more and more to realize that it is being unwanted that is the worst disease that any human being can experience” (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.19). Transformation from a principal of a school to Mother Teresa Mother Teresa was born Agnes Bozaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in a small town called Skopje, which is a part of Yugoslavia now (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.8). However, she lived most of her life in India. She was a teacher at Loreto convent and taught catechism and geography (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.8). However, one day, while going to Darjeeling for a retreat, she heard God’s voice asking her to help the people living on the streets of Calcutta and who were poor, hungry, homeless and sick (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.8). Her realization that life beyond the convent walls was hard and cruel and that there were thousands of people who were dying because of hunger and ignorance, made her restless (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.8). According to Mother Teresa, the voice in her heart was not just a voice but was a command asking her to follow “ him into the slums and serve him among the poorest of the poor” (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.9). She realized that God did not want her to continue with her normal life of working, earning and having a family. He wanted her to be poor and serve poor, in which God lives in disguise (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.9). The important thing to note here is that even though the voice that led to transformation was a voice of God, the work that she was asked to do was not religious by nature. It was humanitarian. The convent that she was teaching in, and where she eventually became a principal, was not involved in helping the poor. In fact, even Mother Teresa was not aware of the poverty and misery of people outside the convent (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.8). She heard the stories of grief and helplessness of people who were extremely poor and who lived in the slums from other girls coming to the convent (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.8). This is how she came to know that people from street and slums are dying without anyone helping them or looking after them. After getting the command from God, she went to the spiritual director to get the permission for leaving the cloister as she wanted to help the people who were suffering from sickness and poverty (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.9). However, instead of releasing her from the duties of nun immediately, the process took two years as it involved permission from convent, the church in India and the Vatican (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.9). This shows that the religious body she was associated with did not really care for her humanitarian work and took their own time releasing her. She intended to work for all the people who were in desperate need of love and care ,no matter what religious background they had. Her aim was not to work only for people who followed Christian faith. While leaving Loreto, she adopted a white sari as her attire, which she was to follow for rest of her life (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.10). Mother Teresa’s intention was much more than just going to the slums and caring and loving the people who lived there. She desired to carry out the cleaning and other physical needs of the people who were sick ,with her own hands. She realized that people who were poor were dying on the street due to lack of money for treatment and due to abandonment, as they were not clean and were in mess (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.10). She was mentally prepared to devote her life in the care and rehabilitation of people who were sick and poor. However, she knew that if she was to do it for the rest of her life, then she needs some medical training to cater to the needs of the people who were sick (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.10). This thought made her to attend a four month medical training from group of nuns called Medical Missionary Sisters, in the town of Patna(Mother Teresa, 2007, p.10). This shows that Mother Teresa was not one of those people who just wanted to open a service centre for poor and run it. Her main aim was to help the people who were sick by taking care of them by cleaning their wounds and bodies, dressing their wounds, comforting them and providing food to them. She wanted to act and not just donate. The beginning of the ‘real work’ Mother Teresa faced many challenges in her path towards the work of human welfare and care. After returning from Patna, she had to start from the scratch as she did not have funds, place or backing of any organization to start her work (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). Not only that but she did not have enough money even to rent a room for herself (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). In spite of these hardships, she started teaching the children living in the slums by taking their classes under the tree and using the dirt as the blackboard (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). However, things started progressing as the people passing by realized her passion for helping the children and started donating furniture needed for the class and also money (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). In this way she opened a two room school and some months later opened a second school (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). Tending the people who were sick, poor and homeless. Mother Teresa’s school did not stop her from extending a helping hand towards the people who were sick and could not afford the hospital bills (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). She started tending the people who were sick by visiting them in hospital, visiting their homes and getting the people who were living on the streets admitted in hospital (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). She also found that not every person needed admission to the hospital. What they needed was attention, caring and medicine (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). Also, because of the misconception about the diseases like TB and leprosy and because of lack of money, the family members use to drive those suffering from the diseases out of the house (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.14). These people would beg on the streets and somehow survive. There were two things that Mother Teresa needed and that was medicine and a place where people who were terminally ill can die with dignity rather than dying on the streets as a disowned human being (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.15). This need made her to realize that she will literally have to ask for monetary help from people and the institutions who had money (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.15). It was not an easy decision as, apart from fighting her own feeling of shame in asking for monetary help, she also had to face the criticism from Church authorities who thought that asking for monetary help was against their religious practice (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.15). But she persisted. Her perseverance shows that what she did not have any religious bias in it. She wanted to help the people who were in need of love and caring and most of all, were in need of a person who can make them feel that they are not alone in the world. MISSIONARY OF CHARITY Her perseverance through hard work and persistence paid, and step by step, Mother Teresa founded a Missionary of Charity, which was recognized in the year 1960 (O’Brien, 2008, p.49). The sisters who worked with the charity were not nurses but were so passionate in their desire to help the people who were poor and sick, that along with the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, they added a fourth vow which was “wholehearted and free service to the poorest of poor” (Mother Teresa, 2007, p.17). Even though Mother Teresa said that the work of the Charity was religious work and not social work (Poplin, 2008, p.10), she went beyond the religious dimensions of her work. Even though she practiced all the vows of Christianity (Poplin, 2008, p.12), she devoted her life in making the life of poor people dignified and fulfilling by catering their physical, personal, mental and emotional needs. In the beginning, her desire was to become a nun and serve the church, however, after hearing a command from God, she turned away from the religious way of life and accepted a humanistic way of life (Poplin, 2008, p.13). The Missionary of Charity grew leaps and bounds and started spreading the centers in Calcutta and later, all over the world. The centers were opened for children who were sick and handicap and needed attentions and care (Poplin, 2008, p.13). The centers were filled with children suffering from different diseases like malaria, hepatitis, tuberculosis etc. (Poplin, 2008, p.25) and also infants. The Missionary used to take care of the infants whose parents were sick and were looked after (Poplin, 2008, p.25). All the basic daily needs and chores related to children’s food, clothes, sleep and cleaning were taken care of by the missionary (Poplin, 2008, p.25). This involved cleaning the dirty clothes and serving them food (Poplin, 2008, p.25). All this was done by the sisters who lived in poverty and did not even enjoyed the luxury of having fans in the hot temperature that hardly came below 100 degree Celsius (Poplin, 2008, p.25). Sisters working in Missionary had to live a life of poverty and without any sensual pleasures (Poplin, 2008, p.28). It was not an easy job. However, what inspired them was the work done by Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa used to take care of the people who were ill by personally being there. As she recorded in her journal, she washed sores, dressed the wounds, gave medicines to the needy, fed the hungry people and comforted them with love and compassion when she herself had nothing to give them (Poplin, 2008, p.31). This act was done without knowing the religious background or loathing the physical condition of the person suffering from disease. Most of the times, people who were sick and poor, lived in dirty and disease prone areas. However, Mother Teresa did not hesitate even for a second before extending the helping hand and love. This shows that she was working as an angel of God. According to Mother Teresa, she cared for the people who were poor and ill as she saw God in them (Poplin, 2008, p.33). In this way, she became an image of love, harmony, peace and unconditional service. The message of peace and unconditional love to the World The humanitarian work that she started multiplied rapidly and in less than 30 years, the Missionary Charity opened 477 centers in over 103 countries (Nicholas, 2000, p.67). This was possible because of her unconditional service. Mother Teresa was criticized by the some conservative Christian groups as according to them, “she had fallen short as a Christian by not demanding that her hospice patients of different religions accept Jesus Christ and be baptized”(Nicholas, 2000, p.67). Mother Teresa would respect the feelings and values of different religions and if the person who was dying demanded to see a priest of his religion, then she would arrange for the meetings so that the person dies in peace and fulfillment (Nicholas, 2000, p.67). This unconditional service was not digested by some orthodox Christians. This shows that more than a religious work, Mother Teresa’s work was humanitarian as she loved and respected the human life and did not put any condition for her service. In the year 1979, she was awarded Noble Prize for her humanitarian services (Nicholas, 2000, p.67). In this way, Mother Teresa set an example of a service that can be both, religious and humanitarian. World saw her as not just a messenger of God but a messenger of peace, unconditional service and love. She was an epitome of compassion and care and this image of hers will always live in the hearts of the people. References: Mother Teresa (2007). Love: The Words and Inspiration of Mother Theresa. CO: Blue Mountain Arts, Inc. Nicholas, T. (2000). Calling More Saints. New York: Troitsa Books. O’Brien, M.E. (2008). Spirituality in Nursing: Standing on the Holy Ground. MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. Poplin, M. (2008). Finding Calcutta: What Mother Teresa taught Me about Meaningful work and Service. IL: InterVarsity Press. Hitchens, C. (1995). The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. New York: Verso. References: Wright, J.H., Basco, M.R & Thase, M.E. (2006). Learning Cognitive-Behavior Therapy: An Illustrated Guide. VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. Bender, L. & Mosier, S. (Producers). Sant, G.V. (Director). (1997). Good Will Hunting.[Motion Picture]. United States: Miramax Films. Read More