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Mother Teresa's order battles on a decade after her death


Aug 28 10:47 PM US/Eastern
AFP

In the decade since Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity order she led has overcome her loss and other challenges to expand its global presence, her successor says.
"It has been a journey of faith," Sister Nirmala told AFP at Mother House, worldwide headquarters in Kolkata of the order where the Nobel peace laureate lived and worked for decades.

"It has been challenging," she reiterated, attired in the order's signature white cotton sari with blue borders, but "we feel Mother's presence in all we do."

Mother Teresa, an Albanian-born Roman Catholic nun who dedicated herself to working among the sick and destitute of this sprawling city in eastern India, died on September 5, 1997 days after celebrating her 87th birthday.

Since then her order, which runs homes for abandoned children, the old and destitute, as well as those suffering leprosy and AIDS, has opened branches in 14 new countries.

From 733 in 130 countries in 1997, it now has 757 in 145 nations while the number of nuns has also risen and now stands at 4,800.

In addition, 257 novitiates from different nations are waiting to join the order while 435 are in the early stages of preparation, said Sister Nirmala, a diminutive, bespectacled 73-year-old.

She attributed the success to Mother Teresa, noting that the new countries included the likes of Israel, Algeria, Bosnia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan.


The Kabul centre, which opened last year, is operated by four sisters who work with poor and handicapped children. To fears over the risk to aid workers and missionaries in Afghanistan she retorts: "Our work is the work of love so people always appreciate it."

Meanwhile in Kolkata, a steady stream of Indian and foreign visitors bears witness to the enduring appeal of Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje in 1910 and who arrived in India as a novitiate back in 1929.

"We have scores of visitors every day, it's hard to keep up with numbers," one nun said after bidding goodbye to a young Italian couple.

Dignitaries coming to Kolkata make it a point to see the order -- the most recent last week was Akie Abe, wife of Japan's premier Shinzo Abe.

"It's incredible the kind of work Mother Teresa did for the poor," said Tom Lederer, a young American volunteer at a home for the old and dying here.

Rose-Anne Riley, another US volunteer, said the life of the nun -- awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work -- epitomised "the true Christian spirit of selfless love at the service of humanity."

As well as paying respects at her simple grave in the ground-floor prayer hall of Mother House, visitors spend time at a new one-room museum displaying her belongings.

They include a low wooden stool, plain writing table, a wheelchair she used in the last days of her life, her sari neatly darned in places along with a pin used to secure it, and her leather sandals.

Exhibits also include her pen and pencils, crockery, photocopies of prayers in her writing and pictures of her meeting the late Pope John Paul II.

"There are no words to express my feelings," said a tearful Indian visitor to the museum.

"A life of love and unflinching service for the people rejected by society of another country, far away from where she was born, it's unbelievable."

Although set on the road to sainthood by the Vatican in 2003, Mother Teresa is yet to be declared a saint as "there has been no miracle yet that qualifies for canonisation," said Sister Nirmala.

She said she was not disappointed. "It will come in its own time. This is God's work... when he wants it done, it will happen."