Mother Teresa 

I had recently spent a summer in India on a Fulbright-Hays scholarship, and the country had touched me in a special way. So, when I heard Mother Teresa was scheduled to appear in Charlotte, I tried to arrange my schedule in order to attend. I was teaching school at the time, but she was speaking in the afternoon, and I managed to go. I have never forgotten the experience.

Mother Teresa was a short woman in statue but huge in presence. She had a special glow about her that seemed to radiate Jesus. Here was a woman who had dedicated her life to helping the plight of India's poor, especially the orphaned children. In her thick accent, she stressed the dignity and importance of every life and could not conceive of rationalizing abortion. She clearly saw it as murder of the innocent, and she wanted to get this message across.

The little nun had been born on August 26, 1910 in Macedonia, but ethnically she was Albanian. When Anjezs Gonxhe Bojashiy was eighteen years old, she left home to join the sisters of Loreta. She took the name Agnes but chose the Spanish version, Teresa. First, she was sent to an abbey in Ireland to learn English, and later started her work in India. She was eighty-four years old when I saw her in Charlotte,  and she only lived for another two years. Over her lifetime, she received many accolades, but she also had her critics. 

Mother Teresa did most of her work in Calcutta, a place that a professor at UNCC called, "the armpit of India." It was the one of the few major places in India I didn't go, but the city is known for it's poor and slums. Just from the brief time I was in her presence, I felt her closeness to God, and I was blessed by it.

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