Mother Teresa: A Biography

MOTHER TERESA

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MOTHER TERESA

A Biography

Meg Greene

GREENWOOD BIOGRAPHIES

G R E E N WO O D P R E S S

WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT . LONDON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greene, Meg.

Mother Teresa : a biography / Meg Greene Malvasi.

p. cm.—(Greenwood biographies, ISSN 1540–4900) Includes index.

ISBN 0–313–32771–8 (alk. paper)

1. Teresa, Mother, 1910– 2. Missionaries of Charity—Biography. 3. Nuns—India—

Calcutta—Biography. I. Title. II. Series.

BX4406.5.Z8G74

2004

271'.97—dc22

2004009232

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright © 2004 by Meg Greene

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004009232

ISBN: 0–313–32771–8

ISSN: 1540–4900

First published in 2004

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

www.greenwood.com

Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).

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CONTENTS

Series Foreword

vii

Preface

ix

Introduction

xi

Timeline: Significant Events in Mother Teresa’s Life
xiii

Chapter 1

Skopje

1

Chapter 2

Answering the Call

13

Chapter 3

A New Direction and a New Journey

29

Chapter 4

Out of a Cesspool—Hope

39

Chapter 5

“Rigorous Poverty Is Our Safeguard”

53

Chapter 6

Kalighat

67

Chapter 7

Shishu Bhavan and Shantinagar: Places of Peace 79

Chapter 8

The Growth of a Miracle

91

Chapter 9

Blessings and Blame

105

Chapter 10

“The Most Obedient Woman in the Church”

123

Bibliography

143

Index

147

Photo essay follows page 66.

SERIES FOREWORD

In response to high school and public library needs, Greenwood developed this distinguished series of full-length biographies specifically for student use. Prepared by field experts and professionals, these engaging biographies are tailored for high school students who need challenging yet accessible biographies. Ideal for secondary school assignments, the length, format and subject areas are designed to meet educators’ requirements and students’ interests.

Greenwood offers an extensive selection of biographies spanning all curriculum related subject areas including social studies, the sciences, literature and the arts, history and politics, as well as popular culture, covering public figures and famous personalities from all time periods and backgrounds, both historic and contemporary, who have made an impact on American and/or world culture. Greenwood biographies were chosen based on comprehensive feedback from librarians and educators. Consideration was given to both curriculum relevance and inherent interest.

The result is an intriguing mix of the well known and the unexpected, the saints and the sinners from long-ago history and contemporary pop culture. Readers will find a wide array of subject choices from fascinating crime figures like Al Capone to inspiring pioneers like Margaret Mead, from the greatest minds of our time like Stephen Hawking to the most amazing success stories of our day like J. K. Rowling.

While the emphasis is on fact, not glorification, the books are meant to be fun to read. Each volume provides in-depth information about the subject’s life from birth through childhood, the teen years, and adulthood. A v i i i

S E R I E S F O R E W O R D

thorough account relates family background and education, traces personal and professional influences, and explores struggles, accomplishments, and contributions. A timeline highlights the most significant life events against a historical perspective. Bibliographies supplement the reference value of each volume.

PREFACE

Writing about Mother Teresa can be both a frustrating and challenging exercise. On the surface, she appears almost one-dimensional, living a simple life devoted to her calling and her faith. Closer inspection, however, reveals a personality so rife with contradictions that it is difficult to explain her motives and purposes. What is the reality? What finally can a biographer conclude about the life of Mother Teresa?

In many ways, Mother Teresa defies the biographer’s art. Her life is not interesting. There are, or seem to be, no great adventures, no great crises, no great sorrows, no great turning points. Most biographies of her are so reverential and so one-dimensional, that it is easy to forget that she was a human being and did not from birth belong to the ages. Even a list of her numerous accomplishments and awards does little to capture her inner life. She did not appear to suffer from the terrible internal conflicts, hard-ships, or adversities that often mark a great and memorable life. Rather, her life was mundane and ordinary, and she never pretended it to be otherwise. Perhaps, though, her very ordinariness provides a starting point for the biographer. How did this unexceptional woman captivate and console so many that she has come to take her place among the monumental personalities of the age?

Mother Teresa, however, was something of an artful dodger. When asked about most any topic, but especially herself, she uttered platitudes and pieties that sounded almost meaningless. She concealed herself behind them. Yet, coming from her, these expressions had a ring of truth.

That may be because the story of Mother Teresa is not the story of a great life in the modern sense. Mother Teresa was not a celebrity. On the con-x

P R E FA C E

trary, hers was a life lived on a different principle. She devoted herself to an old-fashioned sense of calling. She worked among the poor of Calcutta because she believed it is what God required of her. She would have done the same work in anonymity if she herself had lived and died in obscurity.

It is that devotion that makes the life of Mother Teresa so interesting.

INTRODUCTION

Modern popular culture promotes celebrity: people who are well known for being well known. Stirring up controversy or scandal and then talking or writing about it enhances celebrity status. Yet, the cult of celebrity does not and cannot adequately explain the hold that a tiny nun from Albania had, and retains, on the conscience of the world.

For a woman who neither sought nor expected recognition, Mother Teresa has exercised an enormous influence around the world. Her missionary work on behalf of the poorest of the poor in India was larger than life, giving rise to questions about how her own experiences prepared her to carry it out and to accomplish all that she did. By all accounts, Mother Teresa was intelligent but passive and self-effacing. She had been an adequate but undistinguished teacher, a commonplace woman, and an ordinary nun, prone to knocking over candles during religious services. Yet, Mother Teresa had one attribute that set her apart in a world often for-getful of God: a deep, abiding faith.

Yet, even Mother Teresa, it seems, could not escape the cult of celebrity, though she tried always to use it to the advantage of the poor whom she served. Until the last decade of her life, Mother Teresa enjoyed universal acclaim as a living saint. Although she appeared indifferent to the attention, she was aware of it and, for example, allowed the media to publish poignant photographs of her working among the poor and the dying to illustrate their plight. Her interview with British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge in 1968 exposed her world to the rest of the world. The public reaction to her work was more than she ever imagined. Donations poured in. But for all the publicity the interview with Muggeridge gar-x i i

I N T R O D U C T I O N

nered for her mission, it may also have set her on the slippery slope that is the price of success: Mother Teresa was becoming famous and all that she did, every word that she uttered, was now for public consumption. For good or ill, she was no longer a devout nun laboring in obscurity.

In its appetite for a saintly celebrity, the media scrutinized every aspect of Mother Teresa’s life and work. When charges of wrongdoing surfaced, public opinion, the fickle engine that drives the cult of celebrity, turned against Mother Teresa. Some were dismayed; others were angry and disappointed. Cynics everywhere rejoiced that another icon had been smashed. Common faults and foibles were magnified in the public persona of Mother Teresa that the media now brought before the court of public opinion. How could a saint also be stubborn, controlling, and unrealistic?

Perhaps Mother Teresa had made a devil’s bargain. She had allowed herself to become well known to publicize her cause, while personally shunning the worldly trappings that accompany celebrity. Suddenly, she seemed not only cranky and demanding, but also hypocritical. At the same time, her unswerving belief in the doctrines of the Catholic Church and her traditional view of the subordinate role of women within it made her a target of liberal doctrinaires. Nevertheless, with all the twists and turns that celebrity brings, Mother Teresa was unswerving in her belief that she was an instrument of God.

So, for all her apparent simplicity, and with all that has been said and written about her, it is still easy to misunderstand Mother Teresa. People in the United States and Europe mistook her for a social reformer, determined to rid the world of poverty and injustice. They were disappointed to find out that she was not intent to bring about social change. She doubtless wanted to help and comfort the poor. More important, Mother Teresa sought to bear witness, to show that even on the wretched streets of Calcutta under the worst imaginable conditions, one could encounter God’s grace and love.

In 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa, the final stage on her journey to sainthood. For many who admired her, canonization was a mere formality; Mother Teresa was already a saint. But her beatification has not silenced critics. Many have, in fact, become more strident, hoping to delay or halt her canonization. There is thus considerable justification for additional study of her life and her work. This biography, then, is not only an examination of Mother Teresa’s life, but of the beliefs that shaped it. The two are so closely intertwined that not to examine them together is to risk missing some essential aspect of this ordinary extraordinary woman.

TIMELINE: SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

IN MOTHER TERESA’S LIFE

1900

Nikola Bojaxhiu (father) and his bride, Drana (mother), move to Skopje in Macedonia; Nikola starts a prosperous construction business and moves his wife to a home near the Vardar River.

1905

Aga Bojaxhiu, sister, is born.

1908

Lazar Bojaxhiu, brother, is born.

26 August 1910

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa) is born.

1913

The Balkan Wars end; Macedonia is divided between Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria.

1919

Nikola Bojaxhiu dies of suspicious causes.

1925

Gonxha first becomes interested in mission work, particularly in India.

29 November 1928

Leaves home to join the Loreto Sisters; she travels to the convent at Rathfarnham near Dublin, Ireland.

6 January 1929

Gonxha is sent to India to begin her novitiate in Darjeeling.

24 May 1931

After two years as a novice, Gonxha takes her first vows; she takes the name Teresa.

24 May 1937

Sister Teresa takes her final vows in Loreto School, Darjeeling, India.

1938–1948

Begins teaching geography at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta, where she will also serve as principal of the school.

x i v

T I M E L I N E

10 September 1946

Inspiration Day; while riding a train, Sister Teresa receives her call to help serve the poorest of the poor.

15 August 1947

India becomes free from British rule; three nations are formed as a result of Indian independence: India, Pakistan, and Ceylon.

1948

Sister Teresa requests permission to leave the Loreto Order to live alone and work with the poor in Calcutta; her first act is to open a school in the slum of Motijhil; on April 12, she receives permission from Pope Pius XII to remain a nun who will report directly to the archbishop of Calcutta; in August, she travels to Patna where she works with the American Medical Missionary Sisters for three months of intensive medical training; she returns to Calcutta in December; she will also become a citizen of India.

1949

Moves in with the Gomes family at 14 Creek Lane in February; in March, Subashni Das, a young Bengali girl, becomes the first to join Mother Teresa.

7 October 1950

The new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity is approved.

1952

Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity move to their new motherhouse located at 54A Lower Circular Road; in August, Mother Teresa opens Nirmal Hriday, the first home for the dying, next to the temple at Kalighat.

1953

The first group of Missionaries of Charity take their first vows; Shishu Bhavan, the first home for abandoned and handicapped children, is opened.

1957

Mother Teresa begins working with lepers of Calcutta.

1959

The first houses outside of Calcutta are opened.

1960

Mother Teresa travels outside of India for the first time since coming there in 1929.

1963

The Missionaries of Charity Brothers is established.

1965

Shantinagar, the Place of Peace for Lepers, is opened.

1969

The International Association of Co-Workers of Mother Teresa becomes officially affiliated with the Missionaries of Charity.

T I M E L I N E

x v

1979

Mother Teresa is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1983

Suffers heart attack while visiting in Rome.

1985

Receives Medal of Freedom from the United States, the highest civilian award given.

1987

The Missionaries of Charity establish hospices for people with AIDS.

1989

Suffers second heart attack; doctors implant pacemaker.

1991

Prepares to step down as head of Missionaries of Charity because of poor health; she is re-elected with one dissenting vote—her own.

1994

Documentary film
Hell’s Angel
is broadcast on the BBC Channel Four.

1996

Granted honorary American citizenship.

1997

Sister Nirmala elected to succeed Mother Teresa as leader of Missionaries of Charity; Mother Teresa dies after having a heart attack at the Motherhouse in Calcutta.