Hot Topic
Mother Already A Saint In Calcutta
With folded hands Margeret Rose of Park Street in Kolkata comes stand praying near Mother’s statue at right corner of the entrance of Mother’s Home, also the headquarters of Missionaries of Charities (MC) at AJC bose Road Kolkata. The home was Mothers’ home for years altogether and that was the place where mother Teresa or the blessed Teresa breathed her last in Sepetr 1997. “Mother has been a saint always and I have been praying to her even when she was alive”, says the seventy four year old frail woman who came daily walking down the busy congested roads of Kolkata. “I owe my life to her. Her touch was magical and I live till today because of that saintly magic”.
“The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace”, a prayer attributed by Mother Teresa is now being narrated by many of her followers as a mark to commemorate her sainthood in her hometown Kolkata. A sense of elation grips the otherwise calm and silent mother’s home yet the flurry of activity of visitor in and out of the sixty year old building. Sunita Kumar has been associated with the Missionaries of charities for the last thirty six years. A practicing Sikh she had been vociferously and voluntarily serving as the official spokesperson of the Missionaries of charities for the last thirty years. A renowned artist in her own capacityshe had drawn numerous sketches of Mother Teresa even during Mother’s lifetime. “ They were signed by Mother but she always asked me, “where are my eyes and my lips, not marked in my sketches? I would tell her, I saw the saint in her. She did not need physical features to get identified” her demure physique was so colossal that I never felt the need to draw them to mark her presence. She was anyway recognizable.
The missionaries of charity headquarters readies for a special mass to commemorate mother’s sainthood. Archbishop Thomas D’souza readies for the mass in his purple robe. The young novice sisters of the missionaries in their white sarees carrying their books bow to the mother’s statue just a little efore the mass. They bow to the statue of the mother kept in another corner of the small chapel at first floor of the house. Holy water poured in a sponge is kept outside for the believers to get their ablutions before entering the chapel. The special mass is at the ground floor near Mother’s tomb where petals of flowers write ‘Jesus thirsts for you. Novice sisters in plain white sarees, graduting sisters in blue bordered whitesaree head covered with one end of the saree and pinned neatly comes one after another to touch the tomb, bow, pray quietly and leave. The room has a aura of mother’s presence at all sides.
“We have prayed to her earlier too. Yes this means how the world recognizes her powers now. But we have always prayed to her, says sister Aaronette M.C. A sister from Orissa she has been with the Missionaries and has travelled the world for the last fifteen years spreading motherwhen as a tw
