 Writer |
2nd RMSEC |
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Inspiration -- Mother Teresa |
THE NUN WITH A PURE HEART
by Marc Titus D. Cebreros
Philippine Science High School, Palo, Leyte
From 1948 until she died in 1997, Mother Teresa held the world with awe and respect for
her humble, patient and selfless service to the poor and destitute. Even up to the
present, her life story continues to inspire people from different parts of the world.
My admiration for Mother Teresa started when I was a child. I was born to a family of
devout Catholics and as a 5-year old, I attended St. James the Greater Kindergarten School
in my hometown of Taft, Eastern Samar. One day, Ma’am Amy, our teacher, showed us a
picture of an old lady, her face wrinkled, kneeling down in front of a beggar and cleaning
his face. All thirty-five of us gasped in shock for up to that time we were not accustomed
to seeing nuns and priests doing menial labor. I asked our teacher who the old woman was
and she answered, "ini hi Mother Teresa of Calcutta." Our eyes widened
and our mouths opened more as we began asking ourselves who was Mother Teresa. But
Ma’am Amy, sensing another question, quickly kept the picture and proceeded with our
lessons. The experience did not discourage me. As I returned to my seat, my eyes were
glued to the picture lying on top of my teacher’s table. From that day on, I promised
to know more about the old nun in the picture.
As I progressed in my studies, I gradually forgot that promise. I became more engrossed
with my lessons that I stopped thinking about my innocent kindergarten vow. However, from
time to time I would hear news about Mother Teresa. On TV, she would be occasionally shown
meeting with various world leaders. Until one night while I watched the evening news at
home, she was shown conversing with the Holy Father. For most men, that event would have
seemed ordinary, but for me it was awesome seeing the Pope listen very intently, like a
son listening to his mother, to every word that came out of Mother Teresa’s cracked
lips. I asked myself, what power does this woman have that worldly rulers, even the pope
stand in attention when she talks?
Luckily, my knack for reading helped me discover the answer to my own question. From
the books at home, and the Internet, I learned that this woman’s true name was GONXHA
AGNES BOJAXHIU, daughter of an Albanian storekeeper living in Skopje, Macedonia. At the
age of 18, she entered the Community of Loreto, taking the name Teresa after the great
Spanish mystic, Theresa of Avila. In 1929, she was sent to Calcutta to work as a teacher.
Thus began 20 years of faithful and productive service to her order. She learned to speak
English and later, master Hindi and Bengali. But deep inside the gray-eyed nun’s
heart, was a longing.
The school where Sister Teresa was teaching was located in Calcutta’s slum
district. Everyday, while walking from her order’s motherhouse to the campus, she
would pass by shanties of poor squatters. As she made her way through the narrow streets,
she would always notice abandoned people, sick and dying, crying in anguish and deep
agony. Yet she felt she could do nothing because her community’s mission was to
educate, not to treat people. So, for twenty years, she was in a dilemma whether to follow
her order or attend to the impoverished and destitute. In 1948, she made up her mind.
Asking herself why she ended up in the filthy slums of Calcutta, she realized that God
must have special purpose for her. Winning the approval of Pope Pius XII, she left her
order and established the Missionaries of Charity, an order exclusively devoted to the
service of the poor. Choosing a white, blue-edged sari as her order’s habit, Mother
Teresa embarked on a journey that not only changed her life but also the lives of millions
of others.
She started by opening a hospital, Nirmal Hriday or Pure Heart, beside the temple of
the Hindu Goddess of Destruction, Kali. That decision was crucial for at that time the
subcontinent was gripped with inter-communal hatred from the bloodbaths that resulted from
the partition of India and Pakistan. The district where Nirmal Hriday was located was
overwhelmingly Hindu, and Hindu attitude towards Christians was the same as their attitude
towards Muslims. Nevertheless, Mother Teresa pushed on, saying that Nirmal Hriday was not
intended to convert believers of other faiths but to care for the unloved ones – the
sick, the abandoned and the dying.
Not long after that, as she walked past Kali’s Temple, Mother Teresa spotted a man
"half-eaten by maggots" lying beside the street. Knowing that the man had only a
few more hours to live, she unhesitatingly approached the dying man, held his hand and
stayed by his side until the last breath. Afterwards she was asked why she did that.
"Because they are unwanted," Mother Teresa simply answered, "I want them.
Besides, the man died with a smile on his face."
Recalling this story, I remembered the picture Ma’am Amy showed us. Then I
realized that the man, the beggar, whose face Mother Teresa was wiping, was the real power
she wielded, the reason why people and pope alike revered her. It was her service and
total dedication that to the poor that inspires many to follow her lead. As the Nun with
the Pure Heart once said, "I exist to serve the poor…to serve Christ in his most
distressing disguise."
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