Today is the memorial of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Mother Teresa Chowk – where the Fest Day function was held – is in the centre of the city. It is a strategic location: behind the IP Mission Church and School, next to a fairly large Muslim residential population and rather adjacent to a famous temple called the Bhadrakali Temple.
Ahmedabad’s former Mayor, Begum Aneesa Mirza, who was instrumental in getting the Municipal Corporation to set aside land for Mother Teresa Square, said the time had come to remember what Mother Teresa did during her lifetime and “reach out to our sisters and brothers who need our help”. She appealed to her fellow citizens to support the work of the Missionaries of Charity not only in Ahmedabad but also in other parts of Gujarat.
The Municipal Corporation has earmarked a plot of land which is made into a lovely traffic island with a lot of greenery and flowers and in the midst of it is the Bronze Statue of Mother Teresa.
In this state still torn by sectarian violence the Missionaries of Charity, still known to most as Mother Teresa’s Sisters run ten homes where they care for the destitute, the dying, the orphans, abandoned children, leprosy and AIDS patients.
Sister Nirmala, the current head of the Missionaries of Charity, is interviewed by AsiaNews
Mother Teresa,” she added, “respected people of all faiths. Devotion to her is spreading across religious boundaries, and she is surely watching over us all, praying that universal brotherhood and love may encompass all humankind.”
“This is also a wake-up call for each of us, to rediscover our dignity as human beings—as children of God.”
According to Sister Nirmala, if Mother Teresa has a message for AsiaNews readers, it is that “God loves each of us—with the most tender love." Choose life and spread love in every small thing we do. Above all else, we must trust Him totally. ”
September 5, nine years ago, Sister Nirmala said, “may have been the day she left us, but for everyone it was also the moment when she met Him, face to face. The anniversary is thus a day of joy and celebration. Now we are waiting anxiously and with hope the day when she will be canonised.”
The official site for the cause of her canonization
A webpage about the Missionaries of Charity
Fr. Z shares her quite (as he puts it) "poetic" entry in the Roman Martyrology:
At Calcutta in India, [the commemoration] of blessed Teresa (Agnes) Gonhxa Bojaxhiu, virgin, who, born at Epirus, quenched the thirst of Christ, abandoned on the Cross, by means of outstanding charity towards the most poor brethren and founded the Congregations of Missionaries (women) and Missionaries (men) of Charity in total service to the sick and abandoned.
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