My comment is live on the World News Network on August 26,2010 on the Subject:"Kolkata prepares to celebrate Mother Teresa's birth centenary-"The Hindu.

With best compliments,
B.N.Singh.

Subject:"Kolkata prepares to celebrate Mother Teresa's birth centenary-"The Hindu
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Bishwa Nath Singh from Dalmianagar (Bihar),India

The grateful nation celebrates the birth centenary of Mother Teresa today that is on August 26,2010. Besides India, the day will be marked with celebration and thanksgiving in many parts of the world. Though, she was a simple nun with her unique brand of faith and compassion and was able to alleviate loneliness, hunger and destitution by reaching out through a worldwide mission to millions of abandoned, homeless and dying destitute, irrespective of their caste, faith or religion & nationality. She was born in Skopje, a city in the folds of the Balkans, then as now a crucible of many religions and races, she was the youngest of three children of deeply Catholic Albanian parents. Her father died when she was seven; her mother struggled hard to earn bread for her family and turned increasingly to the local church for spiritual sustenance. Young Agnes (as she was then known) encountered uncertainty and adversity early in life. The lessons of diligence, discipline, passion and kindness were imbibed in these early years. She began her new life from Calcutta in 1929. She had joined the Loreto Order as a novice aged 19. Here she would take her religious vows and teach for almost 20 years. In 1948, in an even more cataclysmic turn of events, again entirely of her own making, she left the convent doors behind her for a vision of the street. She had realized that this was where her true vocation lay, and she pursued this goal with diligence, even obstinacy. This she did till the Vatican made her its first exception in several hundred years, permitting her to step out of the Loreto Order, but with her vows intact. She would remain a nun but without belonging to an established Order of the Church. These were early signs of spirit and will power, together with prayerfulness and faith, laced with not inconsiderable charm, which would provide the propulsion for the quite incredible journey that lay ahead. By 1965, she had set up a vast network of service across India. The time had come for her to move her mission overseas. She saw need everywhere; there was plenty of the poor and hungry in divisive societies in each continent, in desperately poor and prosperous societies alike. And so she set up feeding centers and leprosy stations in Africa, AIDS hospices in North America, community programmers in the Australian outback, and a host of services that helped lift the most marginalized, hungry and lonely from a desolate life in streets and slums of Africa, Asia and the West.Although she herself remained fiercely Catholic, her brand of faith was not exclusive. She had said that she converse. She converts others to be a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Protestant, and a better Sikh.. From her humblest beginning in the slums and streets, she reached out to alleviate the problem she encountered by the simplest and most straightforward means available to her. Her thinking was both simple and complex: She had to be a administrator par excellence to set up a multinational organization that spread to 123 countries by the time she died, with the help of about 5,000 members of her Order, and countless millions volunteers. She was conferred” Bharat Ratna”- the highest civilian of India in recognition of her meritorious services rendered by her in 1980.. The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food. As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize .She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the funds be given to the poor in India .Let us join to pay our homage to her!


World News Network
August 26,2010.