21 Great Leaders: Learn Their Lessons, Improve Your Influence (37 page)
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Authors: Pat Williams
In early October, she returned to Calcutta and talked to her spiritual adviser at the convent, Jesuit Father Céleste Van Exem, and told him about her experience on the train. She had made a solemn vow to the Loreto order. Now it appeared that God was calling her to a new ministry—but she would not go back on her vow unless Father Van Exem gave his blessing. Only with his blessing could she be certain God’s hand was in this undertaking.
Father Van Exem told Sister Teresa to renounce this new idea, and put it out of her mind—but he was actually putting her new calling to a test, to see if it was a delusion or a genuine call from God. By January 1947, Father Van Exem was convinced that her calling had truly come from God—and he released her from her vows.
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For the rest of her life, Mother Teresa would look back on September 10, 1946, as “Inspiration Day.” Biographer Joseph Langford observed, “Though no one knew it at the time, Sister Teresa had just become
Mother
Teresa.”
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Mother Teresa was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, and she had studied his life and leadership style. She understood how important symbols were to Gandhi’s leadership—the spinning wheel, the homespun cloth, the loincloth. So from the outset, Mother Teresa chose visual symbols that would help her new religious congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, to make a distinct impression.
She went to a local bazaar and purchased three Indian saris made of white cloth and edged with three blue stripes. Now, instead of a traditional black or white nun’s habit, the Missionaries of Charity would wear habits that symbolically represented the culture of India.
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It was a brilliant act of “branding” that would make Mother Teresa one of the most recognizable figures on the world scene.
In 1948, one year after India achieved independence from British colonial rule, Mother Teresa became a naturalized citizen of India. She took some basic medical instruction then began her work among the poor. Soon she was joined by other nuns who shared her burden for the poorest of the poor.
The early years were a time of financial struggle. Mother Teresa had to devise creative approaches to fund her work. On one occasion, she went to a Calcutta grocery store that catered to upscale clientele. Though she had no money, she proceeded to load shopping carts with food—about $800 worth. When she reached the cashier, she loudly declared that she was buying food for starving people—and she was not moving out of line until the people behind her came up with donations to pay for the food. She left the store with her groceries paid for.
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Mother Teresa found value in scrounging for money and supplies daily. She found that her struggles helped her identify with the poor. While looking for a house to serve as a shelter for the poor, she wrote about her struggle in her diary: “The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health.”
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While finding creative ways to make ends meet, Mother Teresa discovered that she had the makings of a shrewd businesswoman. She learned that the city government of Calcutta was looking for a solution to one of its biggest public relations problems—the destitute and dying people in the city streets. So much unsightly human misery was bad for tourism. So Mother Teresa went to the city officials and offered them a deal: If the city would give her a house, free and clear, she would help take the destitute and dying people off the streets.
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One of Mother Teresa’s most important priorities was hospice care for the terminally ill. In 1952, the city of Calcutta provided an abandoned Hindu temple, which she converted into a free hospice called Nirmal Hriday, the Place of the Immaculate Heart. Mother Teresa’s biographer, Kathryn Spink, explains:
The sick and the destitute, the beggar picked up from the streets, the leper rejected by his family, the dying man refused admittance to a hospital—all were taken in, fed, washed and given a place to rest. In the beginning, conditions in the home for the dying were rudimentary in the extreme. There were times when Mother Teresa transported people in dire need in a workman’s wheelbarrow. Of those brought in, those who could be treated were given whatever medical attention was possible; those who were beyond treatment were given the opportunity to die with dignity, having received the rituals of their faith: for Hindus, water from the Ganges on their lips; for Muslims, readings from the Koran; for the rare Christian, the last rites…. “A beautiful death,” [Mother Teresa] maintained, “is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and wanted.”
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The Missionaries of Charity established a number of clinics throughout Calcutta for people suffering from Hansen’s disease (leprosy). In 1955, she opened the first of many orphanages, the Children’s Home of the Immaculate Heart. By the 1960s, the ministry of the Missionaries of Charity had spread across India in the form of hospices, leprosy clinics, and orphanages. From the 1960s on, the Missionaries of Charity have expanded their work into 133 countries around the world.
Mother Teresa ministered in relative obscurity until 1969, when British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge (a longtime agnostic who had recently converted to Christianity) profiled her in a documentary titled
Something Beautiful for God
. As a result of this publicity, Mother Teresa soon became a household name.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her service to the poor and terminally ill. Poverty and human misery, the Nobel committee said, constitute a threat to peace. She accepted the medal but declined the traditional ceremonial banquet, and she directed that the $192,000 prize be given to the poor.
Mother Teresa was always looking for people she could enlist in the struggle against poverty and disease. This typical incident, recalled by Father Dwight Longenecker, speaks volumes about the kind of servant she was:
Father Dwight and his friend Father James had both grown up in India, so in 1985, they made plans for a three-week journey through India. Before leaving, they took up a collection in England that they intended to present to Mother Teresa in person.
When they arrived in Calcutta, their driver took them to the mission house where Mother Teresa lived. They went inside and presented the check to the nun at the reception desk. She offered to introduce them to Mother Teresa. Minutes later, Mother Teresa emerged and greeted Father Dwight and Father James warmly.
“Have you come to give your life in service to God’s holy poor?” she asked.
The question caught them off guard. They stammered, “We’re Anglican priests from England.”
“We have many people working with us from England,” she said. “Perhaps you will stay and work for just a few years?”
“We have parishes in England we need to return to,” they replied.
“I understand,” Mother Teresa said. “Go in peace, and thank you for coming.”
At the time, the idea of setting aside all their plans to serve alongside Mother Teresa seemed unthinkable. But years later, Father Dwight had to ask himself, “What if…?”
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Those who lead by serving are always trying to raise up a new generation of serving leaders to come after them, to replace them, to carry on their work. Recruitment was a big part of Mother Teresa’s ministry.
ISSION TO
B
EIRUT
In 1982, Jeanette Petrie and Ann Petrie began shooting a documentary titled simply
Mother Teresa
, released in 1986 and narrated by Richard Attenborough. They were on hand to record one of the most harrowing incidents of Mother Teresa’s career: her rescue of thirty-seven children from a bomb-damaged hospital in West Beirut in August 1982.
The 1982 Lebanon War between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization began in June, and Beirut was largely in ruins. Some Lebanese children were trapped in the Dar al-Ajaza al-Islamia Mental Hospital, which had been damaged by bombs and artillery fire.
Mother Teresa had been trying to get to Beirut but could not fly in because the airport was destroyed. She learned she could take a “ferry boat” from Cyprus to Beirut, and the documentary crew went along with her. The “ferry boat” turned out to be a Palestinian gun-running boat.
As Mother Teresa led the camera crew aboard the boat, she carried a candle with her and said, “This is a candle to Our Lady of Peace. When we get to Beirut we are going to light this candle, and we will have peace.”
As the boat was crossing the Mediterranean toward Lebanon, the documentary crew experienced a moment of panic: Mother Teresa had disappeared. They went searching for her—and found her below decks, cleaning the filthy toilet in the head.
After being set ashore, Mother Teresa and her entourage made their way to East Beirut, where the Missionaries of Charity operated the Spring School. The documentary crew captured a tense discussion between Mother Teresa, two priests, and a monsignor as they considered how to rescue the children from the bombed-out hospital in West Beirut.
“I feel the church should be there now,” Mother Teresa said, referring to war-ravaged West Beirut. As she spoke, the microphones pick up the scream of artillery shells.
“If you wait a little bit,” said one of the priests, “as soon as the heavy military activities are over, then it will be much more feasible. But if you go across by car to the other side, you might not be able to come back.”
Mother Teresa dismissed his concerns about safety. “I think it’s our duty,” she said.
“Yes,” the priest said, “it’s our duty—but imagine if you go and you get stuck there.”
Mother Teresa asked, “What if both sides stop fighting for a few hours?”
The priest responded that West Beirut was in chaos. A few weeks earlier, Palestinians had killed some Christian priests just for the sake of killing priests. And yet, the priest added, it was their job to risk their lives to save others.
“All for Jesus,” Mother Teresa said. “We have to save one or two. We have to start. You see, many years back, I picked up the first person off the street in Calcutta. If I didn’t pick up that first person, I never would have picked up forty-two thousand in Calcutta. So I think we must go.”
There was nothing more to be said.
Shortly after that discussion, Mother Teresa met with Philip Habib, President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East. She told Mr. Habib she needed his help to cross over into West Beirut so that she could rescue the children.
Mr. Habib said, “Mother, you hear the shells?”
“Yes, I hear them.”
“It is absolutely impossible for you to cross. We must have a cease-fire first.”
Mother Teresa said, “Oh, but I have been praying to Our Lady and I have asked her to let us have a cease-fire tomorrow, the day before her Feast Day.”
Ambassador Habib looked at Mother Teresa incredulously. “Mother, I am very glad you are on my side—that you are a woman of prayer. I believe in prayer and I believe that prayer is answered and I am a man of faith. But you are asking Our Lady to deal with Prime Minister Begin and with the PLO. Don’t you think the time limit is a little short?”
With absolute confidence, Mother Teresa replied, “Oh, no, Mr. Habib, I am certain that we will have the cease-fire tomorrow.”
“If we have the cease-fire,” Ambassador Habib said, “I personally will make arrangements to see that you go to West Beirut tomorrow.”
The next morning, Israel and the PLO agreed to a cease-fire. An awestruck Ambassador Habib kept his word and made arrangements for a Red Cross convoy to take Mother Teresa and her camera crew to the Dar al-Ajaza al-Islamia hospital in West Beirut.
The documentary camera crew recorded the amazing scene as Mother Teresa and the Red Cross personnel entered the hospital and located the Lebanese children. The children were all intellectually disabled. Some had cerebral palsy. Some appeared starved and skeletal. In the documentary, we see Mother Teresa embracing the children, lifting them up and holding them, cleaning them up and putting diapers on them (the youngest is at least seven years old).
One starved little boy, with arms like parchment stretched over bone, lies in a crib, his body quaking, his eyes wide with terror. Though his mental disability prevents him from understanding the world around him, he has spent days in this abandoned hospital, with the sound of artillery and exploding bombs and screaming jets all around. We see Mother Teresa bending over him, rubbing his chest, stroking his hair, raising him up on a pillow, looking into his eyes, smiling at him, telling him she loves him. He stops shivering, and the fear goes out of his face, and he looks peacefully into Mother Teresa’s face.
Mother Teresa helped the Red Cross get the children out of the hospital and into the four Red Cross vehicles—thirty-seven children in all. They took the children to the Spring School in East Beirut, operated by the Missionaries of Charity. Mission accomplished.
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Without any thought for her own safety, Mother Teresa went into a war zone to rescue children. She prayed for a cease-fire and, like the Red Sea parting before Moses, the war clouds parted before this little Albanian nun. Mother Teresa went into West Beirut as a servant—
and she led
.
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MILE AT
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OUR
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IDDEN
F
ACE
”
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and sustained a broken collar bone. A short time later she had heart surgery. It was clear that her heart was failing. On March 13, 1997, Mother Teresa stepped down from her position as head of the society she had founded. She passed away on September 5.
Mother Teresa had her share of critics and opponents. Authentic leaders always do.
Some critics claimed that Mother Teresa, as an outspoken opponent of abortion, should not have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. British atheist Barbara Smoker, then-president of the National Secular Society, complained that Mother Teresa used her Nobel acceptance as an opportunity “to spout anti-abortion propaganda,” and that she denounced abortion as “the greatest evil of our time.”
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