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Mother Teresa
The
Person I Admire most
The person I admire most is admired by
one and all, who known about her. She
was called “The living Saint Mother Teresa”.
Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhiu was born in
August, 1910 at Skopje in Yugoslavia. In 1928 she went to Ireland. There she entered the Loreto
congregation. At that time in Bengal
the sisters of Loreto were carrying out missionary work. A year later she sailed to India with a
longing to join them. She became the
Principal of St.Agnes High School for girls at Calcutta at years of teaching in the congregations schools
and converts.
A large slum near the school caught
her attention. She was deeply moved by
the condition of the lowly creatures. This sufferings stirred her inner self to
give up her comfortable living. Led by
her call within she went out in to the cruel and merciless metropolis. After she took Indian citizenship in
1948. She went about collecting human
wrecks on the streets, housed them and begged from door to door for food.
She founded the missionaries of
charity in 1950 with just a few sisters.
In 1956 she founded the “Nirmal Hriday” a home for the dying destitutes
in the houses donated by the calcutta corporation authorities. Help from the people was little. She did not give up. The hostility of the local people who wanted
to drive her out changed when she housed a dying priest stricken by cholera
whom no one would touch.
After Nirmal Hriday homes for
destitute children, leper colonies and clinics for the poorest followed. In
1963 she founded the missionary Brothers of charity, Today, they run hundreds
of homes in Asia, Europe, America and Australia. She became renowned world over as Mother Teresa - the living
Saint.
She won many awards and honours. She
won the Nobel peace prize in 1979 and Bharat Ratna in 1980. In 1990 she was conferred the Soviet
Land Nehru Award for promoting
friendship among the people and helping the poor and unfortunate. She had received the honour an ‘Angel of
peace’. The awards and admiration had
not changed her life or her sisters.
She had devoted her life to the service of mankind. This ‘Saint of the Gutters’ as she was
affectionately called by the people who loved her, went about her godly
business of bringing love and aid for destitutes at her foundation in India and
abroad. Her sisters lead a rigorous
life because in her opinion they must known what poverty is. They follow the
principles of Mother Teresa not merely as social work but out of joy and love.
Mother Teresa she did not like to talk
about herself and felt at peace among the people of homes. She began her day with an early morning mass
and visited all her homes wherever she happened to be. She enjoyed her work and inspired many to
join her.
In 1991 she suffered pneumonia,
leading in congestive heart failure.
Before she died in September, 1997 due to cardiac arrest she stepped
down as the head of her order. Her death stunned millions of people all over
the world She was given a state funeral
and was laid to rest at Mother House in Calcutta.
I admire her deeply and wish that
world had many more such admirable personalities.
By
Jaspreet Kaur
VIII A
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