Mother Teresa

The death of Mother Teresa in a suffering world adds pain to where there once was healing. Her work with the world’s blind, crippled, aged and dying stood practically and symbolically for the possibility of human goodness in even the most destitute quarters.

Albanian by birth and Indian by choice, she was known worldwide for her devotion to helping the poorest. Her founding and work with the Order of the Missionaries of Charity brought her the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. The speech she gave at the presentation of the prize, not surprisingly, came directly from her experiences helping the poor. She told of a Calcutta woman, in desperate condition, who had been brought to the mission.

“I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took my hand, as she said one word only, `Thank you’ — and she died.

“I could not help examining my conscience before her, and I asked what I would say if I were in her place. My answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself; I would have said, `I am hungry, that I am dying. I am cold. I am in pain’ or something, but she gave me much more — she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face.”

Later in her speech she turned her attention to the West, commenting on a different kind of poverty here, a place that enjoys an abundance of so many of the world’s riches. “I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove,” she said. “When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person who has been thrown out from society — that poverty is so hurtful, and so much, that I find it very difficult.”

Mother Teresa, dead after more than six decades of selfless service to humanity, leaves us this difficult poverty — and the question of why it has not yet been overcome.