Mother Teresa: A Voice of Peace - Research Paper Example

College Mother Teresa: A Voice of Peace The modern culture has a trend of applauding and promoting celebrities, a group of people who are known for the sake of being known, while some are known for all wrong reasons. On the other hand, some are fond of stirring up controversies to attract attention and amplifying their actions by talking about them to enhance their status. This was not the case for a nun born in Albania and who continued to live a poor life driven by the love for humanity, peace and justice not in his native country, but in Calcutta India, while spreading the gospel of peace love and justice the entire world. One of the modern times peace activists who changed the world through her love, and advocacy for justice and peace was a catholic nun, Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, a city mostly inhabited by the Muslims in the Balkan Albania. The nun though born to a rather successful family underwent through a series of family crisis after her father died leading to the family losing everything to her fathers business partners. Therefore, though not a political figure or a social activist, her humbleness, love for the poor and service for humanity left a mark across the globe making her a remarkable peace and justice activist of the 21st century. Gonxha’s life Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu better known as mother Teresa was born the third child and last born in August 26, 1910 in the city of Skopje, in Albania to staunch catholic parents, Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Greene 4). While her father was a self-made businessman, her mother was obligated with domestic duties and stayed at home to look after her kids. However, the happy family life was short lived. During her eighth birthday, her father died unexpectedly, an occurrence that opened a life of grief and devastation in the family, shaping her for her future role of recognizing herself with the poor and the rejected in the society. Drana, Gonxhas mother practiced religious devotion with a passion and had deep values for good work. Particularly, one of her main tasks was to help the poor in the society, a task that Gonxha as a young girl helped her mother accomplish (Greene 5). Through her mothers charity based on her Christianity beliefs, Gonxha developed a strong attitude towards helping the weak and living a strict spiritual life, which she believed to be the only way to shape her destiny and that of others. Nikola, Gonxhas father was also a politician who was actively involved in Albanian politics. In 1919, when the Albanian authorities staged a plan to acquire Kosovo from the larger Yugoslavia, Nikola had travelled to a political meeting in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a journey that changed the life of his family forever. While in a banquet, he got seriously ill prompting Gonxhas mother to send her in search of a priest to administer the Extreme Unction in accordance to the Catholic doctrines (Greene 7). Unfortunately, her father passed away shortly after, in what his friends alleged to be as a result of poisoning by his political enemies. Nikolas death was followed by acquisition of all his familys property by his close business associates, leaving his family in torment and anguish, which greatly impacted Gonxhas life. However, through her mothers efforts, they managed to pull over from extreme poverty. An important lesson that the young girl learned from then was that a home was a critical place where the poor return for a meal and to bed (Greene 7). The lesson triggered a strong perception on the value of a family and family life in Gonxha, a concept that largely shaped her missionary life and work. Due to her passion and involvement in helping others and a strong religious rooting, Gonxha developed a strong sense of becoming a catholic nun. By 1928, she was spending more time at the shrine of the Madonna of Lenice, near Skopje, a life that was to be shaped by close involvement with a catholic priest, Jambrekovic, a Jesuit missionary (Greene 9). It was on December 1, 1928, when Gonxha sailed for India to start a new life with nothing, and arrived on January 16, 1929 in Calcutta, India, where she started a long journey towards peace activism. Her jouney involved changing the lives of many and the neglected people in the area, an activism based on love for humanity, love for peace and justice in addition to strongly rooted religious spirituality. Gonxha underwent a major transformation in Calcutta mainly after experiencing wars and conflicts, which had even displaced them from the convent in India. In 1945 after the Second World War ended, Gonxha wrote a letter to her mother about her predicaments in India, where her mother reminded her that the basic idea that made her leave her native country to India was working with the poor. Moreover, she was reminded about a woman her mother had taken in when everyone else had refused and told Gonxha to emulate the same example. It was this message that made Gonxha rethink her duties and works in India, choosing the poor and the neglected people in the society for whom she sought justice and showed love. Her passion and love for the poor later earned her the name Mother Teresa not only to the people whom she worked with, but to the entire world. Mother Teresa’s Teachings Mother Teresa was mainly involved in preaching and advocating for peace across the globe and love for humanity, which was the basic principle of lasting peace. Importantly, she had lasting belief that peace in the world, which amounted to the lack of wars and conflicts in societies, could only be found from the basic units of any society, the family. One of the famous quotes of Mother Teresa was, "If there is no peace in the world today, it is because there is no peace in the family. Help your families to become centers of compassion, and so bring peace" (Macnair 55). From the above statement, different from other peace activists who target political systems as the basic units of ensuring peace in the society, Mother Teresa targeted the family, as the basic unit of society to bring peace to the world. In other words, better societies are made of solid families that endear coexistence and value for one another in a brotherhood spirit. Such families would then integrate to make a society, a community and a universe that is peaceful. As such, civil strives and conflicts are bred due to a breakdown in the family structure as it was supposed to be and the only way to address the problem would be ensuring the family block is strengthened. Mother Teresa stressed that, the best opportunity an individual has to contribute towards global peace was playing their part actively as members of the family. In other words, when a father or mother plays her or his role as expected, there would be peace in the family as the children would learn from the best and emulate their parents. Replication of this pattern would finally lead do lasting peace and justice throughout the world. As such, peace has to begin with each and every person but is not the prerogative of any government or authority (Macnair 55). Mother Teresa suggested that People who had no time to sit down with their families and talk about beliefs, values in addition to listening to one another are responsible for the lack of peace in the world. Such people do defeat the very essence of a family block as the essential element to ensure peace in the world. Moreover, Mother Teresa connected peace in the world with the peace within an individual, a concept that is only possible when such individuals find peace within their families. "There can be no peace in the world, including peace in the streets and peace in the home, without peace in or mind. What happens within us happens outside us. The inner and outer are one" (Braswell and McCarthy, 37). In other words, an individual who finds peace at home tends to have peace within him. When such peace is deeply embedded in the minds of the individual, the individual has to share the peace with others. As such, if everyone possesses peace within him or her, the peace is reflected in their actions, which certainly leads to peace in the entire world. Mother Teresa in this quote suggested that the presence of many cases of conflicts is a manifestation of how people lack peace within themselves, which is manifested by disruption of peace outside their body. Therefore, the only way for such people to find peace would be to enhance peace in families as the basic units of the society. When people have such inner peace, it will be certainly shared with those outside, leading to a peaceful society. Consequently, mother Teresa had much value for the family as the building block of any society. She believed that it was only through ensuring strong family institutions that the world can have lasting peace. In other words, people who are rich in inner peace share the peace with others, which prevents conflicts and other strives that disrupt peace. Most of Mother Teresa’s teachings and works were based on the need for love as the basic principle towards ensuring justice in the world. Moreover, Mother Teresa viewed strong connections between love, justice, peace and family units. For instance, she remarked that peace and war had their beginning in one’s home and that if individuals wanted to have peace in the world; the fundamental point to start in finding such peace would be loving one another within families (Mother Teresa, 26). Again, she reiterated the importance of a family in the society and went further to link the family with existence of love, peace and justice in the world. Love is the key to finding justice and peace in the family and then extending such love to the world, a love that Mother Teresa shared by showing kindness to the poor despite their religion , race, color or any other aspect. To mother Teresa, the only genuine love was love for the neighbor. It is only by loving those around us; from our family members to the neighbors that the love may spread outwards to whoever may need it in the entire world (Mother Teresa, 27). Moreover, she taught about the impotence of faith strongly linked to actions as an indication of true love and justice. For instant, she taught that in order to love others, it is important that people develop faith; faith was love in action and love in action was service for humankind (Mother Teresa, 32). As such, true love has to be linked to service for humanity; service for humanity ensures justice promotes love and peace in the society. For example, the rich have to mind the plight of the poor and share whatever they have. Mother Teresa once remarked that the poor were more generous than the rich since they shared the little they had with those who did not have anything (Mother Teresa, 39). She stressed this as the ideal world that everyone has to emulate in order to ensure peace, love and justice are shared across the world. Mother Teresa’s Work Most of Mother Teresa’s work targeted the poor as she had developed strong love and affection for the poor as a neglected group in the society. For example, Mother Teresa spent many years living in poverty among the neglected people in the “house of dying” and other areas in Calcutta. These groups comprised of lepers and other sick and old people with no support from families (Mother Teresa, 40). Importantly, she stressed on the joy of giving, a principle that made her give up her life for the poor in India. In many instances, she declined offers to have fund raising conducted on her behalf and insisted that true giving involved giving one’s self for the service of the poor and mankind. This concept attracted many volunteers and her admirers from all over the world to visit Calcutta and volunteer on different capacities in offering services to the poor. As such money and wealth were of no importance to Mother Teresa, but she insisted on the need for personal sacrifice and love for humanity to serve others. She had strong beliefs that God did not create any poverty, as he created man alike. However, man created poverty by refusing to share with one another; the only way to eradicate such poverty was not through political policies but by humanity sharing whatever they have with their neighbors. Mother Teresa’s passion for the poor disturbed and amazed many of her admirers. For instance, she had a tendency of inviting the poor to any house that she was living in, a concept that was worrying to many (Maasburg, 31), but which to Mother Teresa was a life and a way to share love with others. She also worked for many years in hospitals that had been established to deal with the poor, and expected all her accomplishes to work with the poor in such areas (Mother Teresa, 37). Suffering was a path that she had chosen to follow to emulate Christ, which made her live a poor life by choice and defied many threats on her life for the service of the poor (Mother Teresa, 70). She was respected by both political and religious leaders and her message on peace and love for one another reverberated across the globe. Her strong character made her involved in controversies, especially with political actors. For instance, in Washington DC on an invitation by President Clinton, Mother Teresa chose to attack abortion. As a result, no one on the top table where President Clinton was sited applauded her after the speech, though the president later apologized (Mother Teresa 135). Mother Teresa was also involved in other controversies with the Indian authorities and the public also. An example was when she was accused of failing to admit a street girl, who had been badly burned to the missionary hospital, though Mother Teresa never responded to such accusations. However, Mother Teresa stood out as a strong figure to fight for the poor and help the neglected in the community. It was for this reason that she won the 1979 Nobel Prize on humanitarian work. In summing up, it was through her undying love for humanity, dedication and beliefs on justice for all that Mother Teresa chose a life of poverty and surrounded herself with the poor in her entire life. Her unmatched qualities made her recognized as a peace activist who gave up her life for the service of man, and transformed and inspired the lives of many across the globe. Work Cited Braswell, C. Michael, McCarthy, R. Belinda and McCarthy, J. Bernard. Justice, Crime, and Ethics. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Inc., 2012. Greene, Meg. Mother Teresa: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. Maasburg, Leo. Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Personal Portrait. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011. MacNair, Rachel. Working for Peace: A Handbook of Practical Psychology and Other Tools. Atascadero, CA: Impact Publishers, 2006. Mother Teresa. No Greater Love. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2001. Read More