Navin Chawla

Navin Chawla, author of Mother Teresa did an excellent job in capturing the love and sensitivity of one of Christianity’s icons. St. Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Yugoslavia, and in 1979, as a Catholic religious sister was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She received the call of God at the young age of 18, and left Yugoslavia to be a nun in India. Her vocation was serving the poor. On January 16, 1929, St. Teresa went to the mountain resort of Darjeeling, north of Calcutta to begin a life as a novice. Two years later she took the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Early Life

By the early 1940s, Chawla showed how Mother Teresa met poverty in the Great Bengal Famine that stalked India. Many Indians were starving, sorrowful, and lying lifelessly on the streets. Shortly after St. Teresa got a “Call within a Call” to serve “the poorest of the poor.” She however had to get permission to leave her cloistered life in the convent to work in the streets of Calcutta. The author documented her struggles with spiritual confessor Bishop Celeste Van Exem, and the Vatican. Fortunately St. Teresa prevailed, and permission was granted to do this work among poor souls.

In her new vocation as advocate she was joined by some young women, some of whom were formerly students to do such work. By the 1950’s with some medical training under her belt she took charge of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Chawla also described the travels of her sisters to be with the poor all over the world. Mother Teresa pledged to take the unwanted babies of the world. Her Missionaries of Charity gave out hundreds for adoption. But her views on abortion had many detractors, for she advocated natural family planning and self-control. St. Teresa had implicit faith in the Roman Catholic doctrine and wanted to bring prayer back into people’s lives. Chawla vividly explained Pope Paul V1, 1965 visit to India as a guest of the government. And the Lincoln Continental limousine he used for his state visit was later donated to Mother Teresa’s charities. This gift was raffled off for a tidy sum with which she built a main hospital block in Shantinagar.

Activities Abroad

St. Teresa’s humanitarian facilities included dispensaries, leprosy clinics, rehabilitation centers, homes for the abandoned - crippled, mentally retarded, unwed mothers, sick, dying destitute, and AIDS patients. At various Indian schools educational activities were ongoing. There were classes in sewing, commerce, and handicraft. The missionary sisters would make prison visits, help families, taught catechism classes, and Sunday school with activities centered on Catholic teaching. Missionaries of Charity encompassed Missionary Brothers of Charity with additional houses established all over India. There are also international houses that exist in many areas of the world. These were in Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, the Gaza Strip, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sicily, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Panama, Japan, Portugal, Brazil, Burundi, England, USA, USSR, South Africa, and in Eastern Europe.

Chawla traveled much to keep up with Mother Teresa’s activities, and carefully described her many ventures and difficulties in establishing missionary homes. This all began with her desire to live with the poor to understand them as equals. After years of dedicated service to “the poorest of the poor,” St. Teresa was terminally ill and millions prayed for her recovery, and she came back from the precipice of death. But on September 5, 1997, a few days after her 87th birthday she went to be with God. But before she died on March 13, 1997, the Missionaries of Charity elected Sister Nirmala to be the new Superior General. The Indian government honored her with a state funeral, and her coffin was on a gun carriage that once bore the bodies of Mahatma Ghandi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Mother Teresa was declared St. Teresa of Calcutta on September 4, 2016.… (lisätietoja)