Mother Teresa: A Biography (8 page)

It was soon apparent that the quarters at Creek Lane were becoming too small for the growing number of sisters. Father Van Exem and Father Henry once again went to work searching for new quarters for the order.

One of the first nuns to join the order remembered how Mother Teresa and her nuns helped the two priests:

Father Henry organized a procession every evening. He accompanied the sisters as we went through the Calcutta streets saying the rosary aloud. . . . And from six to nine, we went on the road from our house to St. Teresa’s Church and hence to Fatima Chapel, praying there and again on our way home. We O U T O F A C E S S P O O L — H O P E

5 1

were asking our Lady of Fatima to obtain for us the new house we needed.13

Finally, a suitable house was found at 54A Lower Circular Road. The home, which belonged to a former Muslim magistrate, was bought by the diocese of Calcutta with the understanding that Mother Teresa would pay back the loan. In February 1953, Mother Teresa and her group moved into their new residence. In tribute to their founder, the sisters called it Motherhouse.

NOTES

1. Eileen Egan,
Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa
—
The Spirit and the
Work
(Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1986), p. 43.

2. Egan,
Vision,
p. 43.

3. Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla,
Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of
Mother Teresa,
(Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1999), p. 39.

4. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 38.

5. Kathryn Spink,
Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1997), p. 38.

6. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 40.

7. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 40.

8. Egan,
Vision,
p. 48.

9. Rai and Chawla,
Faith,
p. 42.

10. Edward Le Joly,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Biography
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 28.

11. Mother Teresa with Jose Luis Gonzàles-Balado,
Mother Teresa: In My Own
Words
(New York: Gramercy Books, 1996), pp. 24, 30.

12. Spink,
Mother Teresa,
p. 43.

13. Le Joly,
Mother Teresa,
p. 30.

Chapter 5

“RIGOROUS POVERTY IS OUR

SAFEGUARD”

Lower Circular Road is a humming center of activity in Calcutta. The street is filled with pedestrians and traffic. The everyday drone of people, car horns, rickshaw bells, and trams is broken occasionally by the passing of Hindu processions and political parades. With all the commotion, it is easy to overlook the residence located at 54A Lower Circular Road; the noise of the everyday world drowns out the daily prayers of the home’s residents.

To get to 54A Lower Circular Road, one takes a narrow lane that leads to a three-storied, gray-washed building. On closer inspection, however, one sees that there are really two houses that surround a small courtyard.

Leaving the lane takes one to the front brown-painted door; here is a small chain attached to the frame, which, when pulled, rings a bell on the inside. The bell is an acknowledgement of the power outages that often plague Calcutta. Once inside the home, the visitor is in a very special place: the center of activity for the Missionaries of Charity and their now-deceased founder, Mother Teresa.

POOR BY CHOICE

With their move into Motherhouse in early 1953, the Missionaries of Charity had their own base of operations. Not only did the new residence offer more room for the growing number of newcomers to the order; it also had its own chapel and a dining hall. Mother Teresa also had her own quarters. Slowly, new recruits appeared asking to be taken into the congregation as a Missionary of Charity.

5 4

M O T H E R T E R E S A

Despite the spacious new surroundings, Mother Teresa was determined that her congregation live a life shaped by extreme poverty. They would not deny themselves the necessities; however, they would reject with kind, but firm, graciousness any offers of material goods from the well intentioned, as they were seen by the order as luxuries. “Our rigorous poverty is our safeguard,” Mother Teresa said. She later explained that the Missionaries of Charity did not want to do what other religious orders had done throughout history—that is, to begin by serving the poor, but ending up servicing the rich, and themselves. “In order to understand and help those who have nothing, we must live like them. . . . The only difference is that they are poor by birth and we are poor by choice.”1

In the early days of the order, maintaining the vows of poverty was not that difficult. Besides their meager possessions, the sisters soon learned how to beg for their needs as well as the needs of the poor. However, the poor came first and the needs of the order second. Still, that period was filled with a number of stories, many of them humorous, as the sisters learned to improvise given their situation and their mission.

Finding properly fitting shoes was a continual challenge for the nuns.

On one occasion, Mother Teresa allocated the same pair of sandals to three different sisters, all of whom were in desperate need of footwear. On another occasion, the only pair of shoes available for one sister to wear to church services was a pair of red stiletto heels. However, she chose to wear them and the sight of her hobbling was the source of much amusement for many days.

Articles of clothing were also at a premium; habits were made out of old bulgur wheat sacks; sometimes the labels were still visible under the thin cloth cover of the white saris, even after repeated washings. One sister’s habit clearly bore the label Not for Resale under her sari. One Christmas, there were not enough shawls for the sisters to wear to Midnight mass; instead those without wore their bed covers.

JOINING THE ORDER

When Mother Teresa first established the Missionaries of Charity, she worked hard to help prepare the young women who entered the order. Father Van Exem and Father Henry also helped instruct the newcomers in preparation for their lives as nuns. Gradually, these tasks became more the duties of senior nuns. Mother Teresa always emphasized that the work of a Missionary of Charity was no different from that of social workers. This is not completely true; social workers, while working with the disadvantaged, often try to help correct the social ills that cause poverty in the first

“ R I G O R O U S P OV E RT Y I S O U R S A F E G U A R D ”

5 5

place. For Mother Teresa and her nuns, living among the poor and living like the poor was a means to find God and bear witness to his presence and his will.

Women who apply to join the order must meet four requirements.

They must be physically and mentally healthy. They must have the ability and the desire to learn. Common sense is a necessity as is a cheerful disposition; they would need all they could muster in working with the poor. Initially, women enter the order for only a few weeks or months; in this way, they can see if they are truly meant to become a Missionary of Charity. As in other religious vocations, some find the life too dismal or too hard. Others decide to leave and marry. Women who choose to remain do so with the understanding that they will sever ties with their families. Rarely are they allowed to return home, though periodic visits are allowed every 10 years or so; in the case of a family illness, permission is given for the sister to go home. Often, if the nun is to be sent to a mission abroad, she is allowed to visit family members before leaving.

When joining the order, a young woman spends the first six months as an aspirant and the following six months as a postulant. This period also offers an opportunity for those who wish to leave to do so. The next two years are spent as a novitiate; again if one chooses to leave the order, she may do so without receiving special permission. At the end of the two-year period, the novitiates take their first vows. The next five years are known as the juniorate; from then on, each year the candidates renew their vows in order to strengthen their spiritual commitment to God and the order. For those wishing to leave, special permission is now required from the head of the order. The sixth year is known as the tertianship; before taking their final vows, the nuns are sent home to visit with their families and to reflect upon whether they are ready to assume the duties and life of a Missionary of Charity. When asked once about what she expected of her nuns, Mother Teresa replied: Let God radiate and live His life in her and through her in the slums. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let her be the friend of the little children in the street. . . . I would much rather they make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.2

LIFE AT MOTHERHOUSE

The daily routine for those who chose to be Missionaries of Charity was long and grueling. Weekdays, the sisters rose at 4:40 A.M. to the call of 5 6

M O T H E R T E R E S A

Benedicamus Domino
(“Let us bless the Lord”) and the response of
Deo
Gratias
(“Thanks be to God”). Dressing at their bedsides with a sheet covering their heads, they went downstairs to wash their faces with water that came from the courtyard tank and was carried in empty powdered milk cans. They then collected ash from the kitchen stove to clean their teeth.

Each sister washed herself with a small bit of soap; this same bit of soap was used to wash their clothes as well. Between 5:15 A.M. and 6:45 A.M.

the sisters went for morning prayers, meditation, and then mass. They then went to the dining hall where each drank a glass of water before breakfast. In the beginning, there was no tea for breakfast; instead milk made from American powdered milk was given. Breakfast consisted of five
chapattis
(homemade bread made from wheat or other grain flours and baked without yeast) spread with clarified butter (
ghee
). The
chapattis
provided strength and energy to the body and it was required that all eat their allotment, something that many had a harder time doing than going without food. Father Henry once told a story of how, when the first newcomers joined the order, they came with the expectation that food would be insufficient and one of many deprivations they would suffer. At their first meal, Mother Teresa put their plates before each one. Amazed, the women looked at the plates full of food. They were told to eat it, as it was their due. Mother Teresa then reminded them that God “wants obedience rather than victims.”3 In addition to their food, all of the residents took a vitamin pill with their meal. After their quick breakfast, the sisters were out on the streets by 7:45 A.M. to begin their work. The sisters made a point of traveling together in pairs for their own safety as well as to help one another.

In the parlor of the Motherhouse is a hand-drawn chart that lists the various activities the sisters are to do. These included providing child welfare and educational programs and operating nutritional daycares; family planning centers; dispensaries; leprosy clinics; rehabilitation centers; shelters for the homeless, crippled and mentally disabled; homes for unwed mothers; and hospices for the sick and the dying. A separate col-umn notes the total number of these institutions and the number of people who benefited from them. A world map with red pins denoted the areas where the Missionaries of Charity established homes or foundations.

In time, Missionaries of Charity in Western Europe and the United States offered family visits and a prison ministry. The Missionaries of Charity’s emphasis in India and many Third World countries—besides helping to educate the poor and tend the dying—came to be on homes for alcoholics, shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens, and hospices for AIDS patients.

“ R I G O R O U S P OV E RT Y I S O U R S A F E G U A R D ”

5 7

By noontime, many sisters returned to Motherhouse for prayers and a midday meal, which consisted of five ladles of bulgur wheat and three bits of meat if there was any available. After the meal, housework was attended to and then came a rest of 30 minutes. Afterward, there was more prayer and afternoon tea at which the nuns ate two dry
chapattis
. There followed another half-hour of spiritual reading and instruction from Mother Teresa. The sisters then returned to the city.

By 6 in the evening, the sisters returned to the Motherhouse for prayers and dinner, which usually consisted of rice,
dhal
(a spicy dish made with lentils), tomatoes, onions and various seasonings, and other vegetables.

During the meal, there was also 10 minutes of spiritual readings. After dinner, attention was given to darning and mending, using a razor blade, needle, and darning thread kept in a cigarette tin. There was also time for recreation; this was the one time that conversation about subjects other than work was permitted. The signal for this recreational conversation to begin was
Laudetur Jesus Christus
(“Praise be Jesus Christ”), to which the sisters answered “Amen.” Now was the time that all could share what happened to them during the day. Then at 10 o’clock, the day was over; and everyone retired for the night.

Because Sundays were often as busy as weekdays, Mother Teresa set aside Thursdays as days of respite for the residents of Motherhouse. On this day, the sisters might engage in prayer and meditation. Quite often in the early days, Mother Teresa would take her group to the home of a Calcutta doctor, where they would have a picnic and relax on the grounds.

The physical demands of the sisters’ work were strenuous. On any given day, they might have to jump railway tracks or ditches or slog through pools of standing water. During the rainy seasons, there was the danger of being caught in a flash flood. Mother Teresa instructed her nuns always to say their rosaries that each sister carried with her. In time, measuring distances covered was not added up in miles, but in how many rosaries were said. When the conditions they encountered were desperate or terrible, the Sisters sang High Mass in Latin.

Even with the emphasis on poverty, there were times when the sisters went without necessities. When there was no fuel to cook their meals, the sisters ate raw wheat that had been soaked overnight. When their curry was too bitter and there was nothing available to improve its taste, the sisters ate it for the sake of the conversion to Catholicism of the Mau Mau tribe in Africa. No matter the sacrifice, the sisters did it willingly and often with smiles on their faces.

Not all welcomed Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity into their lives. Some of the poor resisted the sisters’ efforts to help them, see-5 8

M O T H E R T E R E S A

ing them as trying to convert the poor to Catholicism. Others simply did not want charity. For those young women who offered their lives in service to the poor, rejection also waited. Many girls’ families were ashamed of their vocation to help the poor and outcasts of the city. In some cases, family members, if coming upon a daughter or sister who had become a Missionary of Charity, crossed the streets or turned away to avoid looking at them. Many parents urged their daughters to leave and were often disappointed and surprised to hear their advice rejected.

THE JOY OF BEING POOR

Throughout the early years of her congregation’s existence, Mother Teresa continued to work hard. Up before any of her nuns and often toil-ing long after they had gone to bed, she never ceased to work. There was always something to do, whether it was persuading those with much to part with some of their goods, overseeing the everyday activities of the Motherhouse, or writing a history of the congregation. She appeared tireless, full of good cheer and ready to move on to the next task. For members of her congregation, she was nothing short of a marvel. As one sister explained, it was as if the constitution of the congregation was being acted out before their eyes. Mother Teresa exemplified for the order the joy of being poor, working hard, and having strong faith in God’s providence.

No task was too menial or disgusting for Mother Teresa to undertake.

One sister, repelled at the thought of cleaning the toilet, hid herself away.

Mother Teresa passed by, not noticing the Sister in the hall. Seeing the state of the toilet, she immediately rolled up her sleeves and cleaned the toilet herself. The sister never forgot the experience and applied herself more fully to her tasks.