Mother Teresa Part 5

MOTHER TERESA: HER PEOPLE & HER WORK

DESMOND DOIG

COLLINS FOUNT PAPERBACK                        1976

PART III

 

Chapter 4: The First Sisters: Poverty their Dowry

• My earliest recollection of Mother Teresa is her attending to lepers in the slums of Howrah, a Calcutta suburb, that is in fact a twin city across the river Hooghly. If Calcutta is wretched, Howrah is even more so, more uncared for, more potholed, more sunk in its garbage, more crowded, more pestilential, a heavily industrialized area overwhelmed by pollution and unemployment.
• Some eighty lepers had gathered themselves in an abysmal slum cul-de-sac; the huts were visibly decayed about us, the open drains were choked with human waste and the whole place stank.
• So powerful, even in those earliest days of Mother Teresa’s work among Calcutta’s diseased and destitute, was her personality that one noticed little else. Try as I may, I cannot give face or substance to the girl who so selflessly helped Mother Teresa that day. She was very young, quiet and small.
• One would not have even bothered at that time to know that this nineteen-year-old Bengali girl, Subhasini Das, was Mother Teresa’s first postulant, one of Mother’s students from the Convent at Entally. The one Father Henry had told us about.
• Sister Agnes is still small, quiet and self-effacing. She is horribly uncomfortable in the presence of interviewers, cameras and tape recorders. I always get the impression in the first few moments of meeting her that she feels trapped, but her hesitant smile soon warms and her practiced composure gives way to friendliness. She might well have been talking about herself when she told us, ‘When God wants you to do something, he gives you the strength to do it.
• ‘I joined Mother Teresa on 19 March 1949. I was one of her students in Entally, and have known her since I was nine years old, when I first went to school. I was nearly in my last year when Mother left. When we knew she was leaving, we were all disturbed.’
• ‘We asked Father, “Why, when there are so many Loreto nuns, is our Mother called? Can’t someone else go?” And Father Henry explained that nobody can be pushed into work like this. It is the call of God himself. If one is not called by God one cannot go. We were very upset as all of us were deeply attached to her.’
• ‘She went because she had seen the suffering of the poor already from the Convent. She saw their poverty and wanted to do something to help. She asked permission from Rome to leave Loreto – its called ex-cloistering – and she was allowed to try it out for a year. If she did not succeed she could go back to the order.’
• ‘From Loreto, Mother went to Patna for four months for medical training. The Holy Family nuns are still there. They have been very good to us. They have trained many of our people. When she returned to Calcutta she was given shelter by the Little Sisters of the Poor.’
• Like Mother Teresa, Sister Agnes was reluctant to talk about herself, even to confirm that she was the first to join. She dismisses their early difficulties by stressing that God gives one strength in the knowledge that ‘whatever you are doing for the poor you are doing for Christ.’
• ‘Always when I am worrying about tomorrow, Mother scolds me and asks, “Why? Isn’t God looking after us?” And this we have to learn from Mother. She says that anything we have or want to keep we should give away while we have it.’
• ‘Amazingly, it’s true. Because during the twenty-six years we’ve had our Congregation we’ve fed so many people daily without having an income of our own. Everything runs on the charity of the people. God touches their hearts and they come and give.’
• ‘Nowadays we are being helped by a lot of organizations, but in the beginning we had none of these. When we started Mother used to bring a tin and announce in the parish, “Don’t throw away your food.” The Sisters used to go out with similar tins and collect left-overs and give them to the poor people.’
• ‘At the Sealdah and Howrah Stations people come from villages where there is no hope of getting any food. You see them day after day lying in corners just waiting for death. Mother is so humble. Even when she goes on planes she asks for whatever food is left over – “Whatever food you can give me please give me, I will carry it.”
• Like Sister Agnes, Sister Florence had been a pupil of Mother Teresa’s at Entally and came from a Bengali family. When she was in class ten, Mother Teresa, who was still Principal of the school, took her along on one of her visits to the Moti Jheel slum over the Convent wall.
• There, as they walked amidst the filth and poverty that must have appeared oppressive to a young girl from a well-to-do background, Mother Teresa explained to her young companion how necessary it was that someone should care for these under-privileged people.
• They must have been inspiring words, words not so much calculated to impress profoundly a sensitive young girl, but words coming straight from the heart of a woman deeply moved and already aware of God’s need for her.
• Would young Agnes Vincent, now Sister Florence, come and give a helping hand if someone began such a service? And the young girl answered, ‘Yes, Mother. Surely we will be able to help.’
• ‘But supposing your parents object?’ ‘No, Mother, I am sure that by God’s grace my parents will not mind.’
• Agnes Vincent was not the only girl Mother Teresa was inspiring. There were others, all senior girls, whom she used to take with her one at a time into the slums, and to each of them she put the same question: Would they help a service dedicated to the poorest of the poor? Would their parents object?
• ‘She was testing our minds,’ said Sister Florence, ‘inspiring us, giving us encouragement. Always from the terrace of our school she could see the slums. I suppose that we knew she would be leaving. When the time came, we gave here a farewell. We sang something beautiful in Bengali – they were farewell songs. The children gave her something and everybody was in tears. From the reception I think she went to the church and from there she left. We didn’t see her any more. We heard she’d gone to Patna for medical training, and then that she was back and had started working amongst the poor. Soon she came fishing to our homes, talking to our parents and to us. We were sitting for our School Final exams then, so our parents thought study was more important than anything else. But Mother said, “No, no, the sooner you come the better.”
• She was young-looking and very dynamic. She inspired us. So we joined her, Sister Agnes first, then Sister Gertrude and Sister Dorothy. We went two or three at a time and formed a group. There were twelve of us without Mother, exactly like the Apostles.
• Then one left because she found it was not her vocation. Four of us carried on studying for our School Finals after joining Mother and she used to coach us to make sure we passed.
• ‘Mother always said God will provide. Even in the beginning when visiting friends and relatives used to bring us something she would say, “No, there is no need. God will provide.”
• Sometime it seems God offers the Missionaries of Charity so much they see fit to refuse Him. ‘When it is against our spirit,’ Sister Florence explained. ‘For example, somebody wanted to give us a washing-machine. Mother called us together because she wanted to see our minds. All of us refused. We said, “No, we prefer to wash our own clothes.” So, until now, we do not have a washing-machine.
• ‘Sister Bernard, how do you spend your day?’ ‘We wake at four, pray till half past six, and then have our first meal. We do our own washing and cleaning of the House before we go out to work. The novices come home for lunch and prayer. They rest a little then have regular classes, studying the rules and scriptures. They have tests before they are professed. We come home at half past twelve, go out again at two, then come in again by half past seven. We have to be back for prayers – this is very important. Mother doesn’t want the Missionaries of Charity to see themselves simply as social workers. By no means.’

 

Chapter 5: Michael Gomes: In the Beginning

• It might help to explain here that none of us pursuing the story of Mother Teresa is Catholic. But I have lived long enough with the great religions of India for much of them to have rubbed off on whatever original faith I had.
• Lights were switched on in the room into which the boy had disappeared and a shy, slim, bespectacled man in his fifties invited us inside. Mother Teresa has described Michael Gomes as a very holy man, and it shows in his gentleness and his serenity.
• His mother was seriously ill and Father Henry came to give her the Last Sacraments. While he was there he asked if Michael Gomes knew of a place, a small room, a hut, anything would do, where Mother Teresa, then in Patna, could begin her work among Calcutta’s poor. She had expressed a desire to live in a poor locality.
• ‘My daughter, she was very small then, heard Father make his request and said, “The whole upstairs is empty. Do you want to see it?” And Father said, “Yes.” But after he had looked around he thought it was much too big. All he wanted was a room. This whole floor where we now sit was empty because my brothers were away, but there were furniture and belongings stacked about. So Mother Teresa came and occupied this room where we are. She brought empty deal-wood boxes and a packing case as her desk. She brought a suitcase and a chair. That’s all she had. When she needed something she called us and we told her she was free to use what furniture she liked.’
• What Michael Gomes did not tell us, but Mother Teresa did, was that he refused to accept either rent or money for food and the numerous other things he provided in those early, bleak days. He took nothing.
• But he and his family, like those who opened their homes and hearts to a stranger and his disciples almost two millennia ago, will be remembered as having helped to kindle a sacred flame that is already sweeping the world. Only his humility would not allow Michael Gomes to see it that way.
• ‘There was a time when she had no food for herself. They used to go begging from door to door and there were people who just turned their backs. But God helped them. It came. It came. Something always turned up.’
• ‘Our first school was started in Moti Jheel, that’s the big slum near Loreto. It was just an open space among the huts. No blackboards, no benches, no chairs, nothing. Just an open space. Mother got one of the labourers, who was doing nothing, to knock the grass off with a spade and, taking a stick, began writing on the ground, in the mud. She wrote the Bengali alphabet, said a prayer, and started with some nursery rhymes. The very second day someone donated a table, then a chair, later a cupboard.’
• ‘From the beginning she started attending to dying destitutes right there on the streets where she found them. There was nowhere to take them. She asked me if I knew anyone who would give her medicines. The Fathers at St Teresa’s were good enough to give her a corner for an outdoor dispensary. Crowds of people came. Now, I knew someone who might give her medicines, but we had never met. “We have spoken only on the phone,” I told Mother.’
• ‘Mother said, “That’s good enough,” so we went, and he jumped on his chair when he heard that we wanted things free. He made a list and said he would try and get everything at a big discount and told us to come back in two days’ time. When we returned, he gave us five parcels of medicines, all that we had asked for and more. And he told her to pay nothing.’
• ‘We saw a man die on the streets that day in the rain all alone. Mother was very moved and was all the more determined to start a home for dying destitutes. Within two months she managed to get a place back to back with the famous Kali temple. It was a rest house for pilgrims, particularly those who came from outside Calcutta. A rich merchant used to provide for their food and even their clothes. But it had become a den of gamblers and drug addicts and of ill-fame.’
• ‘The young men of the locality went to the local Congress Committee and complained. A group of boys were standing around Mother as she worked. When the Police Commissioner saw them he said, “I have given my word that I would push this lady out and I will keep it. But, before I do, you must get your mothers and sisters to do the work she is doing. Only then will I exercise my authority.” They were all stunned. Then he added, “At the back of this place is a black stone image of the goddess, Kali. Here is the living Kali.”
• ‘One day, Mother saw a crowd on the pavement outside the Kali temple and in their midst was a man dying in a pool of mess. No one would touch him as he had cholera. Mother herself picked him up and took him to the Home where she nursed him and cared for him. Eventually he died, but he had a happy death. He was a priest in the Kali temple. And after that there was no more trouble. There have been many cases like that.’
• ‘Which reminds me of the refugee camp outside Calcutta when millions of homeless people were pouring in from Bangladesh in 1971. Senator Edward Kennedy paid a visit to Calcutta and the government had drawn up a programme for him. But he wanted to see things as they were so he asked to visit the camp. Officials and people milled around him wherever he went, so it was difficult for him to see much. But suddenly he spied something: a Sister was washing clothes from the cholera ward. It was Sister Agnes, and Senator Kennedy asked if he might shake her hand. She said that her hands were dirty, but he went ahead and shook her hand saying, “The dirtier they are the more honored I am. It is wonderful work that you are doing here.” I cannot forget that scene.’
• ‘There was so much disease, so much suffering among those refugees. As we prepared to leave, his wife brought us some cold drinks, just fresh lime juice. We were hot and tired but Mother said, “Our Congregation rules forbid us eating outside.” The man said, “Mother, I am not asking you to eat, I’m only asking you to drink.” So she took the glass and sipped form it. That was the first thing that had touched her lips that day – it was eleven o’clock at night.’
• Pointing towards the steeples of the Baithakhana Church, Michael Gomes told us quite calmly that he helps in a school there, a school for problem children. ‘It’s called the Protima Sen School. We take those who are expelled and those whose families can no longer control them.’
• ‘There was the little boy who was caught red-handed stealing in someone’s house. The Police Commissioner who brought him to me said he was a marvelous little chap. He admired him. It seems he belonged to the Moti Jheel slums.’
• ‘One day, some men came along and asked why he was not in school, so they invited him to go with them, promising to put him into a school. And they did. It was a school for pickpockets.’
• ‘He was put into tram cars because picking pockets in crowded cars was considered comparatively easy. He was caught and the public gave him a terrible beating, but he never gave the gang away.  He came to us in 1968 and he’s a respectable young man now, a wonderful character.’

 

Chapter 6: The Child That Could Not Cry

Chapter 7: A Gift of Love

Chapter 8: The Place of the Pure Heart

Chapter 9: A Vocabulary of Love

Epilogue

• The last time I met Mother Teresa she was quite seriously ill. There seemed only one thing to do: call a doctor. But would Mother see him? And even if she did, would she take his medicines? I had been told before how Mother tears up prescriptions the minute they have been written, or hides them. I remember Father Henry saying, ‘She’s a stubborn woman.’
• The doctor we appealed to has known Mother Teresa for years. It was he, who some years ago, more or less abducted Mother from the Mother House where she lay on the verge of collapse, and locked her up in a nursing home. So he knew how to deal with Mother.
• In the company of a happily startled Sister, he strode into Mother’s room, examined her and said by way of explanation that he’d had a prayer whispered in his ear. Some equally determined nuns made sure that the prescription  had no time to disappear.
• The point of this story is that between Mother Teresa and Calcutta and, more recently, the world, there is a two-way traffic of understanding and help. Her most desperate moments, her Gethsemanes, were mainly during the earliest days of her Mission, when she was entirely alone but for her faith, and when she wrote in her diary, ‘Friday. Talked to X who said he had come to school on an empty stomach. They have nothing to eat at home. I gave him the money for my tram fare to buy some food, and walked home in the evening.’
• Or again, ‘Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home (for a center) I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto came to tempt me. But of free choice, my God, and out of love for You, I desire to remain and do whatever be Your holy will in my regard. Give me courage now, this moment.’
• One wonders how many other Missionaries had walked out like her, all alone, into the vastness of India or the terrifying uncertainty of a great city. Chance, or providence, or God Himself, view it as you will, failed them and they went unnoticed, however brave their endeavour.
• It could be that Mother Teresa’s belief was stronger than theirs or that, as she herself explains, she had the certainty of God’s call and knew that He would not fail her.
• That same Chance, or Providence, or God, brought people to help her, from the well-known and famous, to the unknown and anonymous; students, diplomatic wives, Government officials, ministers and businessmen.
• So, Bengal’s most powerful Chief Minister could tell a journalist on his eightieth birthday, ‘As I climbed the stairs leading to my office, I was thinking of Mother Teresa who devotes her entire life to the service of the poor.’
• The Railway Minister himself presented Mother Teresa with passes that allow her and her sisters to travel free on the Indian Railways. We know that Calcutta’s Police Commissioner championed her cause at a time when there was a great deal of opposition to her work.
• A senior Bengal Government official saw Mother Teresa over some insurmountable hurdles throughout those difficult early years when even a person of her indomitable courage could have been defeated by an inflexible person armed with the letter of the law.
• Jawaharlal Nehru, who inaugurated Mother Teresa’s children’s Home in New Delhi, when asked by Mother if she could tell him about her work said, ‘No, Mother, you need not. I know about it. That’s why I’m here.’
• What must always amaze one is that while a growing number of people reached out their hands to help Mother Teresa, she alone was touching and helping them, and through them was reaching out to the vast multitude of the poorest poor.
• I remember, many years ago when it had all hardly begun, I was seated next to a Calcutta socialite who was discussing her latest charity. I asked her if she had heard of Mother Teresa. She paused, looked quizzically surprised, and said, ‘Yes, I have, actually. She’s something of a saint, isn’t she?’