chosen vessel

CARRY JESUS TO THE POOR

Dear children of God, let us salute the chosen and used vessel of God, mother Teresa of Calcutta. Many chosen vessel and saints of God came to serve and minister in India, from all these, the flower of bud came and spread the Aroma of Jesus’ love. Mother Teresa lived to serve Jesus in the poorest of the poor. Her love for God grew strong and she wanted all people to come to love Jesus as she did and to be as happy as she was. Once she had a vision: she saw many very people and children calling out to her; “come, come, save us- bring us to Jesus”. And God said to her; carry Jesus to the poor- fear not I will be with you. Mother Teresa’s charitable work began to attract attention of many nations and world.  The first mission she opened outside of India was in Venezuela in July 1965 and before long she had missions in many other countries of the world. Mother Teresa received many awards, the first being the padma shri in 1962. She received the Jawaharlal Nehru award in1972 and the Bharat Ratna [the jewel of India] in 1980. One award that caught the attention of the whole world was the Noble Peace Prize, which she received on 10 December 1979 in Oslo, Norway. She accepted it and every award and honor [over 700 in her life time] not for herself but in the name of the poor. She was often away from Calcutta, traveling to all parts of the world to bring God’s message of Love and Compassion.

MOTHER TERESA’ CHILDOOD AND DEDICATION :- Mother Teresa was born on 26 August 1910 in the city of Skopje, which today is the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. Her parents, Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu, were fervent Catholics from Albania. They had her baptized the day after she was born and gave her the name Gonxha Agnes.  Gonxha” name; meaning is” flower bud” in the Albanian language. She was the youngest of the five children. Life was pleasant for the Bojaxhiu children. Her father was a merchant and owned a shop not far from their home. Her mother affectionately called “Nane Loke”, means mother of soul” in Albanian, was truly the soul of the Bojaxhiu home. She was a devoted woman who taught her children to pray to God from their earliest years and to know to love him. They learned also from her what it means to love one’s neighbor: anyone who comes to her for help was never turned away when Gonxha was just nine years old. Her father died suddenly. Never had the family felt such pain and sorrow. Drana had to find ways to provide food, clothing and other necessities and see to the education of the children. At the age of twelve Gonxha first heard, in her heart, God calling her to follow him. Years after later, when people asked her about her calling, she said, I knew I had a vocation to the poor. I wanted to be a missionary, I wanted to go out and give the life Christ to the people in the missionary countries. When she was eighteen years old, she wrote to the institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary [the Loreto Sisters], asking to join them. The reason she choose this order of nuns was because they had a mission in India. Her mother gave her this advice: “put your hand in his hand of Jesus and walk all alone with him and never look back.” After a tearful goodbye at the train station, she courageously set out for Rathfatnham Abbey in Dublin, Ireland in September 1928. There she spent two months learning a new language- English. She also received a new name- “Sister Teresa”, as a sign that she was beginning a new life. This new life in a new country, away from her family, was not easy, but Sister Teresa felt a deep joy and peace in her heart.
MOTHER TERESA’S TRAINING AND CALLING:- FROM Ireland, sister Teresa, along with three other young sisters, boarded a ship that would take them to the Loreto convent in Bengal. At last they reached Bengal’s soil. Sister Teresa was sent to Darjeeling. There she spent two years as a novice, praying, studying and training her life as a religious sister. She also needed to learn the language of the people and picked up Bengali and Hindi easily. Finally the great day came when she would commit her life to God. On 25 May 1931, during a special ceremony, Sister Teresa made her first vows. She promised God that she would live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience and would devote herself to teaching children. These vows were temporary- that means that they were for one year, and then she would take them again.  Sister Teresa wore a long black habit [a religious dress] and received a black veil to cover her head to show that she was consecrated to God. Sister Teresa sent to the Loreto Entally Convent in Calcutta. She taught geography and catechism in st. Mary’s Bengali medium school. She taught them the value of making sacrifices to show their love for God in return. When they had free time, Sister Teresa took some of her students to the slums to visit the poor. On 24 may 1937, when she was twenty-seven years old, she made her final vows. This time she promise God to live poverty, chastity and obedience for the rest of her life was to be “only all for Jesus”. From this day on, she was no longer called “Sister Teresa” but “mother Teresa”. She continued teaching and then in 1944 became Principal of St. Mary’s school. She was also put in charge of the daughters of St. Anne, the community of Indian religious sisters who were connected with the congregation of Loreto. It was on the 10 of September in 1946, mother Teresa was thirty-six years old, and she was in the train on her way to Darjeeling to make her yearly retreat, where she would spend eight days in silence, praying to God. On that train she experienced Jesus speaking to her, to give up everything, even Loreto, and follows him into the slums, to serve him in the people who had nothing and no one and who were suffering so much- the poorest of the poor. When she got back to Calcutta, mother Teresa, more than six months kept hearing Jesus speak to her and told her, “ My little one- come, come, carry me to the holes of the poor. Come, be my light. I cannot go alone- they don’t know me-so they don’t want me. Once she had a vision: she saw many very poor people and children calling out her: come, come, save us- bring us to Jesus
In august 1948, Mother Teresa exchanged her black Loreto habit and veil for a white sari with a blue border and left the Loreto convent. Mother Teresa, now thirty –eight years old, first went to Patna to stay with the Medical Mission Sisters so she could learn from them how to do medical work. They taught her to nurse the sick and give injections, what medicines to give for different sicknesses, how to clean and bandage wounds. All this would be important for her to know when she began the work in the slums.MOTHER TERESA’S MINISTRY AND SPREADING THE AROMA OF JESUS’LOVE:- MOTHER TERESA finished the nursing training she returned to Calcutta in December 1948, and she got Indian citizenship as she wanted the country of the people she served to be her own. Mother Teresa went out for the first time to Taltala and began visiting families and poor those were on the street. She went to the pan bagan, Motihil and Tiljala slums, doing what she could to relieve the sufferings of the poor. The poverty and suffering she saw in the slums was dreadful. She cleaned and bandaged wounds and gave medicines to those she could. She understood that these people could be made happy if God entered their lives more fully. By the first week of January 1949, Mother Teresa had opened a dispensary and a school in Motihil with the help of volunteers. Her first class room was under a tree and they used the ground for a blackboard. How happy the children were able to go to school. In the meantime, Mother Teresa needed to find her own place to stay. It was difficult to stay and to be alone. Sometimes she wanted to go back to Loreto. But then she remembered her promise to God and that gave her courage. At last she found a place at 14 creeks Lane, on the upper floor of a house belonging to the Gomes brothers. She moved there in February1949.On 7 October 1950, Archbishop Perier formally established the small community of the Missionaries of charity as a religious congregation in the archdiocese of Calcutta. The work for the poorest of the poor began to grow. Mother Teresa and her young companions carried Jesus as he had asked into the “Dark and Unhappy Homes” of the poor, bringing hope and joy into their lives. Mother Teresa opened centers where the poor could receive food and medicines and started more schools for the poor children in the slums. For mother Teresa, each person was Jesus, even though sometimes He was not very recognizable. She often reminded her sisters of Jesus’ words from the Gospel, “whatever you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me.In the 1950’s, thousands of people lived and died on the streets of Calcutta. The sisters would often find people with full of worms or their bodies eaten by rats, dying alone and uncared for. Mother Teresa wanted a home where she could bring these sick and dying people and care for them so that they could die with dignity and in peace in God. The city cooperation of Calcutta gave her the use of one of the shelters for pilgrims at the kali temple. On 22 august 1952, mother Teresa opened the first home for the dying in kalighat and named it “Nirmal Hriday” which means “Pure Heart”. One of the patients there said, “I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an Angel. In their visits to the slums, mother Teresa and her sisters found children suffering from malnutrition because their parents were so poor and didn’t have food. They also found children who were orphaned. Seeing the need of these little ones, mother Teresa opened a home to care for them- this was the first SHISU BHAVAN. Once she met a rich business man for getting helps for the shisu bhavan children, but the rich man spit on her hands, then she said to him that this is for me’ will you give something for these poor children, the rich man broke in spirit and fell on her knees and asked for pardon and provided all needs for the shisu bhavan. She later started a center for leprosy patients were they could receive medicine and treatment. By 1953, the number of sisters has increased so much that there was not enough space in the 14 creeks lane house. Mother Teresa obtained a bigger house, and this house became the mother house of the missionaries of charity and thousands of girls have lived, prayed and trained to become sisters there since then. Many houses were opened throughout India and from India to more than 120 countries of the world.When mother Teresa was 73 years old, she fell from bed and they took her to hospital and discovered that she had a serious heart problem and had to receive a pacemaker. As soon as she knew there were poor people suffering in some part of the world because of disease, war earthquake, floods or famine, she was there to offer help. It did not matter what caste, religion, or nationality the people were- she saw every one as a child of God and as her brother or sister. As mother Teresa got older, her health continued to get worse and worse. She wanted another sister to take over as head of the missionaries of charity on March13 1997, sister nirmala m.c was elected to be her successor as Superior General. Mother Teresa was filled with joy to give her blessing to sister Nirmala and to be freed from such a great responsibilities. The mother Teresa went home with the Lord Jesus whom she loved so much and served him with great love to spread his aroma of love. The government of India honored her with a state funernal on 13 September1997. Her body was buried in mother house, on her tomb were engraved the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you”. This is what Mother Teresa did all through her life.
Dear friends if you admire and love Mother Teresa, spread the Love of Jesus and share and serve the love of Jesus with others, kindly send your wording to my email ID. revsjc@ gmail.com,revsjc12@hotmail.com,  johnchelliah857@yahoo.com,