In a country where miracles have been the
driving force behind faith and religious practices, Mother Teresa is finally
ready to be canonized as a saint for two of her miracles that she performed on
her devotees. Vatican the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and home to
Pope, the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church approved Mother Teresa’s elevation to sainthood and
set September 4, 2016 as the date for her official canonization. The Archbishop Thomas D’Souza while performing the
thanksgiving special mass for the saint said that “the canonization was a
formality but an important one”.
Mother Teresa is being elevated to be a saint
of the Roman Catholic Church after she performed a second miracle on a person from
Brazil who had prayed to her after her death and was cured
of multiple tumors of the brain. The church had beatified her after considering
the first case of a tribal Bengali woman from Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, who
had disposed before the church about the miracle that cleared her of a
malignant tumor after praying to Mother.
As
the church gave the final clearance to Mother’s sainthood, the Blessed Teresa
of Calcutta as she is popularly known, will on September 4th 2016 in
a gala ceremony in Rome be declared “Saint Teresa of Calcutta”. The city that
she made home and served the ‘poorest of the poor’ has the headquarters of the
“missionaries of charity”, the order of catholic nuns founded by her. The
novices and Mother Teresa’s devotees have been worshipping her much before she was
even considered being a saint.
Sunita
Kumar a renowned artist has been associated with the Missionaries of charities
for the last thirty six years. A practicing Sikh married to a practicing Hindu
she had been vociferously and voluntarily serving as the official spokesperson
of the Missionaries of Charity for the last thirty years. She has had drawn numerous
sketches of Mother Teresa recognizable by her trademark petite look in white
and blue bordered cotton saree. Displaying one of her best art work on Mother
she explains, “Most of them were signed by Mother but Mother just questioned me
always that where were her eyes and lips, not marked in the sketches? I
explained her then that I saw the saint in her. She did not need physical
features to be identified. In fact her presence was so colossal that I never
felt the need to draw features to explain her presence. She was always
recognizable”. Sunita Kumar a grandmother now adds that she herself has had a
personal experience of Mother’s miracles. “Just two hours before Mother’s
death, I had asked her to pray for my young child suffering from Hepaptis B then.
But after Mother was gone we checked him out of curiosity and it was gone from
his body. My child recovered and I cannot forget this ever”.
Similarly
with folded hands Margeret Rose of Park Street in Kolkata prays every day near Mother
Teresa’s statue. On the evening of the special mass at the “Home”, while men
and women participating in the mass took turns to visit the adjoining
exhibition room and learn options on volunteering at the several homes run by
the Missionaries of Charity worldwide, Rose remained indifferent to the flurry
of activity around. She was in deep thoughts with Mother with big drops of
tears flowing down her cheeks. She finished after complete half an hour of
prayers. “Mother was a saint always and I have been praying to her even when
she was alive”, says the seventy four year old frail woman who comes daily
walking down through busy congested lanes to reach Mother’s home in the narrow
lane with the wide gates. “I owe my life to her. Her touch was magical and I
live till today only because of that saintly magic”.
Novice
nuns in their plain white sarees carrying their books, graduate sisters in the
trademark blue border and whitesaree, head covered with one end of the saree
and pinned neatly come one after another to touch the tomb, bow, pray quietly
and leave as part of their daily routine. “We have prayed to her earlier too.
Indeed, now it means the world recognizes her powers as a saint. But for us she
was the call, hence I came all the way from Orissa at the age of eighteen to be
a sister at the missionaries of charity. It took complete five years to be so”,
says sister Aaronette M.C., a sister from Orissa who has spent fifteen years in
service with the Missionaries and has travelled the world spreading Mother
Teresa’s doctrine for the “poorest of the poor”. The order of about five
thousand nuns has millions of followers across the world from all faiths.
This
gains significance particularly now after the recent spur of violent attacks on
churches and on the several Christian priests across the country for allegedly converting
poor Hindues and tribals to Christianity. Mother even in her lifetime has faced
persistent indictment for conversions and it continues till today. Just last
year the Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh Chief Mohan Bhagwat raked up the controversy
by saying “People like Mother Teresa did good work and service, but her aim was
to convert the poor to Christianity. This kind of service is devalued if
conversions are done in the name of service to the poor”. The after effect of
the statement was so impactful that the Central Government even considered
bringing in a national anti conversion law.
That
time Bhagwat did not question Mother’s powers to perform miracles that won her
the “Faithful”. He was rather questioning her service to the people as the
reason for conversion. What
concerned him was the fact that faithful Hindues were converting to faithful
Christians and all due to Mother Teresa’s service for the poor people. He
conceded that she was doing service with a selfish motive of converting the
poor.
It is a fact that Mother till she lived had spent 45 years serving the poor, the destitute, the
sick, the orphaned, and the dying, the untouchables on the streets of Kolkata
and many other places. It was her body of work and service to the nation that
made her “Mother”. The destitute, the untouchables, the ugly, the unwanted
joined her for the love that she gave to the poorest of the poor. Mother was a
mother in real sense for her compassion towards the people and her dedication to
work for the ‘poorest of the poor’ living in the most wretched conditions.
But that is no miracle. Her
sainthood is attributed for the miracles she performed on people and cured them
in miraculous circumstances. Bhagwat or anyone questioning Mother’s motive does
not have
any concerns on the miracles that the “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta” performed.
Nor does he or his likes want to question the rationality behind the miracles.
Bhagwat
could be partly correct to question Mother’s real motive of service to the
poor. Mother was a staunch practicing Christian and she had vehemently in her
lifetime conceded that “her faith in Jesus and the church was supreme” and she
followed “her faith vehemently”. It is but simple that saints have the power
not just to perform miracles but equally influence people by their way of life
and the service towards humanity. Many must have willingly chosen to walk her
path for the service she did for them. And why should not people of a democracy
have that right to decide whom they want to follow or worship.
“Her
aura is immense. It was her call that made me a nun of the order” says Sr.
Deena M.C who took to conversion by choice to follow the leader of the order.
Finally Sunita Kumar refuting all charges adds, “Mother practiced a philosophy
of humanity where she never asked her followers to convert to her faith. I
prayed with her in the same chapel where she always asked me to pray the way I
knew”. “She has always been the saint as I know her”.
Ironically,
all her followers decided to follow her by being touched by her ability to
perform humanly service towards people. But Mother Teresa is a saint today for
some miracles that many might find doubtful. Her service towards human kind is
known to everyone yet nineteen years after her death she is questioned for her
motive to do service and not for her miracles. Also the fact remains that the making
of a saint in today’s world is also by virtue of performing miracles and not
necessarily by the constant tedious hard work for the betterment of humanity.
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