Noble Lecture Summary by Mother Teresa
HER OWN ADMISSION
‘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. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.’
HER ADVENT IN KOLKATA
This luminous messenger of God’s love, Mother Teresa at the age of 12, realized that what she wanted to do most of all, was to help the poor. She decided to train herself for missionary work and came to India at the age of 19 to join the sisters of Loreto, an Irish Community of nuns with a mission in Kolkata.
LIFE IN KOLKATA
From 1929 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Kolkata. But the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls disturbed her. In 1946, she left the convent school and devoted herself to serve the poor in the slums of Kolkata.
She had no money. So, she started an open-air school for the homeless children. Soon she was joined by many voluntary helpers. Various church organisations and the municipal authorities gave her monetary assistance. This made it possible for her to start her own order ‘The Missionaries of Charity’ to take care of those helpless persons. Today ‘The Missionaries of Charity’ has over 1,000 sisters and brothers, nurses and social workers.
VARIOUS ACTIVITIES
Various projects for rehabilitating slum-dwellers, children’s homes, homes for the dying, clinics and a leper colony, etc., were started by Mother Teresa. ‘The Missionaries of Charity’ has also spread worldwide and undertakes relief work for a number of countries in Africa, Asia and South America.
ST TERESA
Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness and the favours being reported, Pope John Paul-II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20th December, 2002, he approved the decress of her heroic virtues and miracles. From 2017 she is St. Teresa of Kolkata, the patron saint of the city.
SUMMARY OF THE STORY
Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work in trying to overcome poverty and distress. In her acceptance speech on 11 December, 1979 in Oslo, Norway, she motivated her audience to spread peace and love. She begins by talking about the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. She goes on to say that we must learn to love one another and especially those who are homeless and alone.
She then tells the audience about her experience at a home for old people, where the elderly longed for love from their children. Then goes on to talk about abortion, which she thinks ‘is the greatest destroyer of peace’. Later she talks about the poor people of Kolkata, describing them as ‘great people’ and talks about all we can learn from them. She goes on to describe the grace with which they live and die. She also says that with love and peace, the world can overcome any evil.
She also says that love begins at home and with loving our neighbours. She talks about a small boy who brings sugar to her home to give to the children. She says about another woman who shares her food with her neighbours even though her own children are hungry. She also says that we must always ‘meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love and that we give until it hurts’. Then she ends her speech by asking the people of Norway to become burning light in the world of peace’.
******************************************