Mother Teresa: A Biography (3 page)

Early on, Gonxha distinguished herself as a gifted and disciplined student.

TRAGEDY

Nikola’s participation in Albanian politics continued even after independence. When, in 1919, Albanian leaders tried to acquire Kosovo, Nikola traveled to a political gathering in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. While attending a banquet, Nikola fell seriously ill. Alarmed at her husband’s conS K O P J E

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dition, Drana sent Gonxha to find the parish priest. He was not at home.

Growing more desperate and not knowing what to do, Gonxha went to the Skopje railway station hoping to find a priest. Luck was with her. She did locate a priest who agreed to see her father. The situation was grave.

Nikola was dying. The priest arrived at his bedside in time to administer Extreme Unction, today known as the Sacrament of the Sick, which Catholics receive when they are expected to die. Just as the priest finished performing the rite, Nikola began to hemorrhage (bleed internally) and was rushed to the hospital. Emergency surgery failed to save him.

Gonxha’s robust and outgoing father was dead at the age of 45. The doctors and family were convinced that his political enemies had poisoned him, though no conclusive evidence ever emerged to prove the allegation.

Overnight, life in the Bojaxhiu household changed. Following Nikola’s death, his partner took over the business and left nothing for the family.

In addition, even though Drana had the right to estates that her family owned, she had no documents to prove her claim, nor did she have the time, inclination, energy, or money to pursue the matter through the courts. Only the family home remained.

Nikola’s death devastated his wife; Drana fell into deep, prolonged, and often incapacitating grief. Responsibility for the younger children fell increasingly on the shoulders of the oldest, Aga. After several months, Drana began to emerge from her mourning. At least the family had a place to live, though Drana wondered how, with her husband’s resources gone, she could provide for her children.

“HOME IS WHERE THE MOTHER IS”

Fortunately, Drana Bojaxhiu was possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit and soon set about rebuilding her life and supporting her children. She handcrafted embroidery and was soon not only selling her handiwork, but marketing the various types of cloth and carpets for which Skopje was famous. Lazar remembered accompanying his mother to the textile factories where Drana met with the managers who sought her advice on designs and materials to boost sales.

As the family’s financial status improved, the Bojaxhiu household once more became a place where the poor could come for a meal and sometimes a bed. As soon as she could, Drana again began to set aside money to help those in need and, despite her busy schedule, still found time to visit the poor. At least once a week she called on an elderly woman whose own family had abandoned her. File, a poor alcoholic woman, also bene-8

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fited from Drana’s care and largess. Six orphan children came to live in the house. Drana continued to impress upon her children the importance of helping the less fortunate. When you do good, she told the children, do it quietly, without calling attention to your own virtue.

Drana always found creative ways in which to instruct her children.

Summoning them one day, she asked them to inspect a basket in which a number of good apples rested. She then placed a rotten apple in the basket and covered it. The following day, she had the children inspect the apples. They discovered that many of the apples, so luscious the day before, were now beginning to rot. The moral was simple but profound: it takes only one corrupt person to corrupt many others. She then reminded her children to stay clear of bad company lest they suffer the same fate as the good apples in the basket. Drana’s influence on her children was extraordinary, especially after their father’s death. Despite her need to work and manage a business, and despite her devotion to the poor, Drana still spent time with her children, who benefited immeasurably from her guidance. So powerful was Drana’s presence that Gonxha recalled “Home is where the mother is.”3

FINDING THE PATH

As the children grew older, Drana insisted that they become more involved in the activities of their local parish church. Besides her mother, the Sacred Heart church exercised the most influence on young Gonxha.

The church was not only important for its religious teaching, but, as a center of Albanian culture and identity, also reinforced the nationalism of the Bojaxhiu family.

Of the three children, Gonxha most readily became involved with the church. She early showed a tendency for religious devotion. When she learned to play the mandolin, it was the church to which she offered her talent. Along with her sister, Aga, Gonxha joined the choir; together the girls earned a reputation for their clear voices and frequently sang solos.

“I was only twelve years old . . . when I first felt the desire to become a nun,” Mother Teresa recalled.4 Much beyond that information, she revealed little about the circumstances that prompted her vocation.

Throughout her life, Mother Teresa maintained that her religious experience was private. She would not discuss it. What made her calling extraordinary was that at age 12 Gonxha had never seen a nun. Yet, her desire to pursue a religious life did not come as a surprise to her mother. Of her three children, Gonxha suffered from the poorest health with a chronic cough and weak chest. Drana believed that if her youngest was S K O P J E

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not the first to die, she would be called to God in another way. Although at 12 Gonxha believed she had received her life’s calling, she did nothing more about it. For the next six years, she continued her schooling and participated in church activities. There was, for the moment, no more talk about becoming a nun.

FATHER JAMBREKOVIC

Father Franjo Jambrekovic, a young Jesuit priest of Croatian descent, arrived at the Sacred Heart parish in 1925. He was destined to exert a great influence on Gonxha. Among the many innovations that Father Jambrekovic carried out was the introduction of a parish library in which Gonxha soon passed countless hours reading. Father Jambrekovic also established the Sodality of Children of Mary, a Catholic organization for young girls that the Jesuits had created. Gonxha joined. Finally, Father Jambrekovic started a Catholic youth group that sponsored walks, parties, concerts, and other outings for the boys and girls of the parish.

Most important for Gonxha, Father Jambrekovic passed on to the members of Sacred Heart news of the missionary efforts that the Jesuits had undertaken. In 1924, he explained, a group of Yugoslav Jesuits had gone to Bengal, India. From their outpost, the missionaries wrote impas-sioned letters describing the horrible conditions under which the poor and the infirm lived. Father Jambrekovic read some of these letters to interested parishioners. On occasion, a missionary came to Sacred Heart to discuss the Jesuits’ work in India and to solicit donations. Father Jambrekovic was enthusiastic in his support of these efforts, and spoke often about them. Gonxha assisted by pointing out to the younger children the location of India on a world map. After the arrival of Father Jambrekovic, she also became more active in the prayer groups of the sodality, which offered prayers for the success of Catholic missions. She told a cousin who was earning extra money by giving mandolin lessons to send the money to the poor in India.

The zeal with which Father Jambrekovic spoke of the Jesuit missions in India sparked a renewed sense of devotion in Gonxha. She was already immersed in church activities, singing in the choir, helping to organize parish festivals, and teaching the younger children their catechism. Her love of teaching and her deep religious fervor prompted her to consider the possibility of doing missionary work. As a young girl, she had dreamed of working with the poor of Africa. The more she heard about the missions in India, however, the more she was drawn to the possibility of working there.

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By the late 1920s, Gonxha had grown into an attractive young woman, mature beyond her years. A good student, neat and clean in appearance, self-disciplined, and well organized, she had already earned a reputation in the community for her friendliness and willingness to help anyone.

Like her mother, she cared for anyone in need.

But Gonxha was struggling with her decision to become a nun. A gifted writer and poet, she often carried a small notebook with her in which to record her poetry and reflections. She continued to play music with her friends and, at times, entertained thoughts of becoming a writer or a musician. Many of her friends regretted that she did not pursue these careers, for her talent was unquestioned.

Trying to decide what do to with her life, Gonxha turned to Father Jambrekovic for advice. During their discussions, she asked how one knew whether the calling to serve God was genuine. Father Jambrekovic explained that if one was truly called, that person would feel such deep joy at the decision that there could be little doubt. In later years, Mother Teresa acknowledged that there was no doubt in her mind about her decision, stating simply that God had made the choice for her.

By 1928, when she was 18, Gonxha was spending more time at the shrine of the Madonna of Letnice, located a short distance from Skopje on the slopes of Black Mountain. There she prayed for guidance. The place had a special meaning to Gonxha. Among the highlights of the parish year was the annual pilgrimage to the chapel of the Madonna.

When Nikola was alive, the family often made the journey in a horse-drawn carriage, joining many others on their pilgrimage. After her husband died, Drana made the journey twice a year: once with a group and once alone and on foot. Gonxha had always looked forward to this trip, but because of her health, Drana sometimes kept her at home. It was at the Shrine of the Madonna that Gonxha sought affirmation of her decision to become a nun.

One day, after returning home from a visit to the shrine, Gonxha informed her mother that she had made up her mind to become a nun. Because of her interest in missionary work, she intended to apply to the order of the Loreto Sisters, an Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary who worked with the Jesuits in Bengal. Drana shut herself in her room. When she came out the next day, she gave her daughter her blessing, but also warned her that in choosing to become a nun, she must turn her life over to God without doubt, without fear, without hesitation, and without remorse.

By this time, Gonxha’s brother, Lazar, had been away from home for several years, attending school in Austria and then later joining the newly S K O P J E

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formed Albanian army as a Second Lieutenant. When Lazar received the news of his younger sister’s decision to become a nun, he wrote to her asking whether she was sure about her decision. Gonxha replied, “You think you are important because you are an officer serving a king with two million subjects. But I am serving the King of the whole world.”5

All too soon, the time came for Gonxha to leave. She was to travel first to Paris, where the Mother Superior of the Loreto Sisters was to interview her to determine whether Gonxha was acceptable to the order. On August 15, 1928, the Feast of the Assumption, Gonxha traveled for the last time to the shrine of the Madonna of Letnice. Later, she attended a concert by the Sodality group, which was given partly to honor her, and had her photograph taken. That evening, guests came to the Bojaxhiu home to wish her farewell. Many of her friends and family brought gifts; one of those she most treasured was a gold fountain pen that a cousin gave to her.

The next day, Gonxha went to the Skopje railway station. Her mother and sister traveled with her as far as Zagreb; friends gathered to wish the Bojaxhiu women a safe journey. Gonxha cried and waved her handker-chief from the train window in farewell. The threesome made the most of their time in Zagreb. Finally, on October 8, Gonxha, accompanied by another young woman, Betika Kanjc, who also hoped to join the Loreto Sisters, boarded the train to Paris. As Gonxha made her way to the train, her mother and sister returned to Skopje. Waving goodbye, Gonxha bid farewell to her mother, whom she never saw again.

NOTES

1. Eileen Egan,
Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa—The Spirit and the
Work
(New York: Image Books, 1986), p. 9.

2. Kathryn Spink,
Mother Teresa
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1997), pp. 6–7.

3. Spink,
Mother Teresa,
p. 6.

4. Navin Chawla,
Mother Teresa: The Authorized Biography
(Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1992), p. 3.

5. Spink,
Mother Teresa,
p. 11.

Chapter 2

ANSWERING THE CALL

As the train pulled away from the Zagreb station on its way to Paris, Gonxha must have thought about the consequences of her decision. Not only was she leaving family and friends, she was also leaving the only home she had ever known. If the Loreto Sisters accepted her application it would mean lifetime separation from her family and her country. She could prob-ably never even visit her homeland again. The chances of her family visiting her were equally remote; travel was expensive and there would be little opportunity for her mother, brother, or sister to come to India. Whether she felt sad and lonely as the train rolled on toward Paris, Gonxha knew that she had made the right choice. Her life belonged to God.

THE INSTITUTE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

The order that Gonxha hoped to join has a long and difficult history.

In 1609, an English woman named Mary Ward established the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM), with which the Loreto Sisters are affiliated. Ward believed passionately in the equality of women, and determined that they should be educated accordingly. In creating the IBVM, Ward envisioned women living and acting in the world. She did not want members of the Institute to live cloistered lives, as was the tradition for Catholic women’s religious orders. Rather, inspired by the Gospels, women would carry the love of Christ to those most in need of it: the poor, the downtrodden, and the helpless. Ward also saw this woman-centered order as being relatively free from the governance of male hierarchy that dominated the church.

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Ward took as her model the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Founded in 1539 by Ignatius Loyola, a former soldier turned priest, the Jesuits were not only missionaries but teachers. Loyola believed that by offering religious and moral instruction, by making devotional life accessible to the young, and by preaching a message of service to others, the Jesuits offered the greatest service to God and His holy church.

Ward’s interest in Catholic education arose in part because of the continuing religious persecution of Catholics in England after King Henry VIII broke with the church in 1534; as a result, English Catholics often fled and sought their religious education on the continent. Ward and her associates established their first school at St. Omer, France. While there, Ward and her group became known to the locals as the English Ladies, a description still applied throughout much of Western Europe. Despite facing continuous financial difficulty, Ward in time established houses and schools in Bavaria (Germany), Austria, and Italy. To communicate with these different convents, Ward traveled between countries mostly on foot.

Although successful, Ward’s vision came at a price. Her ideas about women’s role in religious life were so novel, especially in the Catholic world, that in 1631, church authorities suppressed the Institute. Charged with heresy, Mary was herself imprisoned by the Inquisition and briefly excommunicated, or banned, from the Roman Catholic Church. Only through the intervention of Pope Urban VIII was she eventually freed and reinstated to full church membership, her organization now operating under papal protection.

In 1639, Ward returned to England where the climate toward Catholics had improved during the reign of King Charles I, who had married a Catholic princess and was himself sympathetic to Catholicism. Ward remained in England until she died in Yorkshire in 1645. Upon her death, the Institute was in shambles. Embroiled in a civil war against his political and religious enemies—a war he was destined to lose, and with it his kingdom and his head—Charles could offer the order scant protection.

Radical English Protestants, known as the Puritans, who prevailed in the civil war against Charles, disbanded Ward’s houses and schools in England. In 1650, the year after Puritan leaders had executed Charles, the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary again fled England, seeking refuge in Catholic France. Not until 1677 did they return to Yorkshire under the protection of Charles II, the son of Charles I who had been restored to the throne in 1660. Like his father, Charles II was sympathetic to Catholicism. It was only through the perseverance of Ward’s followers, and the protection that both the Vatican and the English crown extended, that the IBVM survived to continue the work that she had inspired.

A N S W E R I N G T H E C A L L

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THE LORETO SISTERS

Recognizing the need for Catholic education in their homeland, Irish church officials invited the IBVM sisters to establish a school in Dublin.

However, the Institute was not in a position to send Sisters immediately, but arranged that a young local woman, Frances Ball, would join the organization and recruit other Irish women. In 1814, Ball traveled to York, returning to Dublin in 1821. Now known as Mother Teresa, Ball settled at Rathfarnham House with two companions. Because the three women lived together in Rathfarnham House, Mother Teresa decided to call their order “Loreto” after the Italian village to which the home of the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) was supposed to have been miraculously transported. The name stuck, and eventually the order became known as

“Loreto Sisters,” although the official title remains the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Early in 1841, a German missionary asked Mother Teresa to send members of her order to India. By then, generations of Irish, having en-listed in the British Army, were stationed in India, which was part of the British Empire. Many had married and started families. If, however, one or another of the parents died or if they deserted their family, scores of Irish children were lost to the Catholic Church. Beginning in 1834, the Jesuits began arriving in Bengal near Calcutta to deal with this problem.

They established St. Xavier’s School in which they taught Catholics, Hindus, and Muslims alike. It soon became apparent, though, that the community needed a separate school for the daughters of Irish Catholic military families.

When first approached about the possibility of sending nuns to India to staff the girls school, Mother Teresa gently but firmly refused. There were too many children in Ireland in need of assistance. There was also a shortage of nuns. Her German visitor countered that in refusing to send members of her order to India, Mother Teresa was, in effect, refusing to provide a Christian education for those children. Mother Teresa relented. The priest could make his case before the entire community; they would decide whether to accept the mission to India.

In the end, seven sisters decided to go to India, marking the beginning of Loreto missionary work there. On August 23, 1841, the seven, accompanied by two priests and six postulants, or novice nuns, set sail. Almost four months later, they disembarked in Calcutta. The little band took possession of the house at 5 Middleton Row, where they were to live and teach. The sisters prepared the once lavishly furnished house into simpler living quarters and classrooms. The 67-foot dining room became the school hall.

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The sisters then traveled to the local orphanage near the cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary to meet with church officials and the children. Finally, on January 10, 1842, the Loreto School opened its doors to boarders and day students. As became the custom with the Loreto Sisters, students whose families could afford to do so paid tuition. Their monies, combined with other donations, enabled the sisters to provide a free education for children of the poor and to operate an orphanage and a widow’s asylum.

The initial reports that Mother Teresa received from India were enthusiastic. Streams of volunteers now offered to go to India to aid the Loreto Sisters of Calcutta. Even when a number of the nuns died of cholera, the flow of volunteers did not stop. It was this pioneering and courageous group of teachers that Gonxha Bojaxhiu soon hoped to join.

RATHFARNHAM HOUSE

Upon their arrival in Paris, the two girls were taken to the Villa Moli-tor to see Mother Eugene MacAvin, the sister in charge of the Loreto House in Paris. There they were interviewed with the help of an inter-preter from the Yugoslavian embassy. Both Gonxha and Betike were approved and then sent on to Dublin where they would stay at the Loreto Abbey at Rathfarnham House.

The two arrived at Rathfarnham, a simple red-brick building, in September; Gonxha was somewhat comforted upon seeing the statue of the Blessed Mother in the courtyard. The two young women, wearing the long white habit, or dress, and black veil of the Loreto nuns, spent most of the next six weeks studying English, the language in which they were to teach. In order to help them become more comfortable with the language, the two were instructed never to speak in their native tongue, something that both Betike and Gonxha obediently followed. Unlike the native-speaking novitiates, Gonxha and Betike received little other instruction and had little opportunity to get to know many of the other sisters and postulates staying at Loreto Abbey. From all accounts, though, it appeared that Gonxha had inherited her father’s flair for languages and was further helped in her studies by Mother Mary Emmanuel McDermott who was another postulant at Loreto Abbey. At the end of six weeks, on December 1, 1928, the two women set sail for India and their new life. Upon their arrival there, the two would begin their novitiate, that is the period of study and prayer which every nun takes before her final vows.

The sea voyage proved long and arduous, winding its way through the Suez Canal, then the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and finally the Bay of A N S W E R I N G T H E C A L L

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Bengal. Christmas was celebrated aboard the ship with three other Fran-ciscan nuns, also missionaries bound for India. The group sang Christmas carols around a small paper crib made quickly for the celebration. Their only regret was that there was no priest aboard to celebrate mass. But that all changed when the ship made port at Colombo, where a priest would accompany the nuns for the rest of the voyage.

On January 6, 1929, the ship made port at Calcutta. But at this point, Gonxha had little chance to become acquainted with her surroundings.

After just a few days, on January 16, she was sent to the Loreto Novitiate located in Darjeeling, a fashionable hill resort about 400 miles north of Calcutta.

LIFE IN THE LORETO CONVENT

Life at the Loreto Convent for Gonxha Bojaxhiu was disciplined and rigorous. Entering a Catholic convent during the early twentieth century was like being plunged into another world, one that was isolated and relatively contained. For the next two years, dressed in the black habit and veil of the order, Gonxha kept up with her English studies as well as learning the Bengali language. Under the watchful eye of the novice mistress, who oversaw the novitiates’ training, the young women went weekly to confession. Dinnertime was spent listing to one of the sisters reading about the lives of the saints, or from the rules of Loreto. Every day from 9

to 11, Gonxha and the other novitiates taught at St. Teresa’s School, a one-room schoolhouse affiliated with the convent. Here 20 small boys and girls met to receive instruction. She quickly earned a reputation for being hard working, cheerful, and charitable in her dealings with others.

On March 24, 1931, Gonxha Bojaxhiu took her first vows—a lifetime promised to chastity, poverty, and obedience to God as a sister of Loreto.

As was the custom, Gonxha had chosen a new name for herself to symbolize her new life with God. Her choice was an inspired one based on the late-nineteenth-century French nun Thérèse Martin who received her call to serve Christ at a young age and was especially interested in missionary work. She entered the Carmelite order at the age of 15, and throughout her life, Thérèse dedicated her prayers and service toward missionaries and their success. She hoped one day to become a missionary herself to serve with the Carmelite convent in Hanoi, Indochina (now Vietnam). Unfortunately, her dream was never realized, as she was struck down by tuberculosis at the age of 24.

Throughout her short life, Thérèse Martin strove to honor God in what she called her “little way,” that is a life given to the Lord in complete 1 8

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trust and self-surrender, much like a child with a loving parent. In 1927, Pope Pius XI canonized Thérèse Martin who now became St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and the patron saint of missions. In light of Gonxha’s own life, her choice came as no surprise.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with her choice. There was already one nun in the convent with the name Marie-Thérèse. Not wanting to change her chosen name, Gonxha merely decided to go by the Spanish spelling “Teresa.” Still the name change caused some confusion throughout her life, as she was thought to have taken the name of the great Spanish saint, Teresa of Avila. Whenever asked, however, she always patiently explained her choice. For the sisters in the Loreto Convent, however, the new Teresa soon had a nickname that further distinguished her: Bengali Teresa, an acknowledgment of her ability to speak the language so well.

BENGALI TERESA

Not long after taking her vows, Gonxha Bojaxhiu, now called Sister Teresa, took the train from Darjeeling to Calcutta. There, she was to begin teaching at St. Mary’s School, located in the eastern district of Calcutta. It was to be her place of residence and work for the next 17

years.

During the 1920s, the contrast between the cities of Darjeeling and Calcutta was startling. In Darjeeling, one breathed clear mountain air, and a walk in a flower-filled meadow was not far away. It was a city of re-fined culture, of modern European architecture and imported luxury, a retreat for those unaccustomed to the heat and humidity of India. Calcutta, while a dynamic and cosmopolitan city, serving as the political capital of British India, was another story. The city teemed with humanity, overcrowded and spilling into the streets and alleys throughout. It was on one hand a city enriched by the culture and arts of India; on the other, it was a cesspool of human misery and degradation.