聖德蘭‧加爾各答
聖德蘭修女說：「論血統，我是亞爾巴尼亞人；論國籍，我是印度人；論信仰，我是天主教修女；論召叫，我屬於世界；論我的心，我完全屬於耶穌聖心。」
她於1910年生於亞爾巴尼亞，原名Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu，是家中么女。自她領聖體後，便充滿愛人靈的心火。八歲時，父親突然逝世，母親以信德與愛心養育孩子，堅定了Gonxha的性格和聖召；Gonxha又得到本堂（聖心堂）司鐸的悉心栽培。
1928年，Gonxha離家修道，加入童貞聖瑪利亞修女會，取名德蘭。德蘭修女往印度傳教；1929年抵達加爾各答，在學校任教師；1937年矢發永願，正如她所說的：她成為了耶穌永遠的淨配；1944年德蘭修女是一所學校的校長，她的修道生活，充滿喜樂，她的事奉，備受賞識。但在1946年9月，她乘火車前往參加周年退省途中，受到很深的感召；按她所說是「召叫中的召叫」。她說這是她永遠不能解釋的，就是耶穌在十字架上對「愛情」和「人靈」的「渴」，佔據著她的心；耶穌的「渴」，遂成為了她生命的動力。她意味到耶穌召叫她作「光」，以耶穌的愛照耀眾靈魂，特別去服侍被遺棄的窮人，為「窮人中的窮人」服務。經過兩年多的考驗和分辨，德蘭修女受感召要成立一個新的修會。
在1948年，她獲得批准，首次改穿藍白的印度服作會衣，離開童貞聖瑪利亞修女會，走進窮人的世界。
德蘭修女開始收容被遺棄的臨終者、露宿者、病患者、被遺棄的婦女，以及滿身瘡疥的窮苦兒童等等。每天彌撒後，德蘭修女手持念珠，在「被遺棄者、被鄙視者、沒有人照顧者」身上服侍基督。漸漸，她的學生，她的朋友，以及仰慕者，都紛紛加入這個新的修道團體。1950年，加爾各答總教區正式確認了德蘭修女創立的仁愛傳教女修會。
德蘭修女隨後亦派遣修女往印度各地，且於1965年，得教宗保祿六世稱許，派遣仁愛會修女往各大洲，為「窮人中的窮人」服務。1980年以後，德蘭修女在大部分共產國家，都建立了團體，為在窮人身上的基督服務。德蘭修女本人亦多次訪問香港；她的修會（仁愛傳教女修會），也在香港服務和作見證。
1963年，德蘭修女成立了仁愛傳教兄弟修會；1976年及1979年，先後成立了默觀的修女及修士團體；1984年成立仁愛司鐸傳教會；她又讓平信徒加盟成為仁愛會之友，後來，發展成為仁愛平信徒傳教會。1981年，德蘭修女開始基督聖體運動，為司鐸提供她所說的「成聖小徑」，去分享她的神恩和精神。
1979年，德蘭修女為「天主的光榮」，以「窮人的名義」接受諾貝爾和平獎。她發表了「維護生命」和「反對墮胎」的演說。
1997年9月5日，德蘭修女安逝於印度加爾各答。
在她去世後，人們從她遺下的文稿中，才得知她經歷了多年的「心靈黑夜」；這經年的「心靈黑夜」，使她更「渴」求天主的愛，且更深感受到「被遺棄者」的傷痛。這「黑夜」也使她奧妙地分享了基督在十字架上的「渴」，渴求「愛情」和「人靈」，且「愛」到受傷。
2003年10月19日，教宗若望保祿二世宣布德蘭修女為真福。2016年9月4日，教宗方濟各宣布她為聖人。
集禱經
天主，你感召聖德蘭修女，回應你聖子在十字架上，對愛情及人靈的渴望，以卓越的仁愛，為窮人中的窮人服務。藉聖德蘭修女的轉求，求你幫助我們，在受苦的兄弟姊妹身上事奉基督。他和你及聖神，是唯一天主，永生永王。亞孟。
Saint Teresa of Calcutta
“By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.” Small of stature, rocklike in faith, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was entrusted with the mission of proclaiming God’s thirsting love for humanity, especially for the poorest of the poor. “God still loves the world and He sends you and me to be His love and His compassion to the poor.” She was a soul filled with the light of Christ, on fire with love for Him and burning with one desire: “to quench His thirst for love and for souls.”
This luminous messenger of God’s love was born on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, a city situated at the crossroads of Balkan history. The youngest of the children born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu, she was baptised Gonxha Agnes, received her First Communion at the age of five and a half and was confirmed in November 1916. From the day of her First Holy Communion, a love for souls was within her. Her father’s sudden death when Gonxha was about eight years old left in the family in financial straits. Drane raised her children firmly and lovingly, greatly influencing her daughter’s character and vocation. Gonxha’s religious formation was further assisted by the vibrant Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in which she was much involved.
At the age of eighteen, moved by a desire to become a missionary, Gonxha left her home in September 1928 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland. There she received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In December, she departed for India, arriving in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. After making her First Profession of Vows in May 1931, Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta and taught at St. Mary’s School for girls. On 24 May 1937, Sister Teresa made her Final Profession of Vows, becoming, as she said, the “spouse of Jesus” for “all eternity.” From that time on she was called Mother Teresa. She continued teaching at St. Mary’s and in 1944 became the school’s principal. A person of profound prayer and deep love for her religious sisters and her students, Mother Teresa’s twenty years in Loreto were filled with profound happiness. Noted for her charity, unselfishness and courage, her capacity for hard work and a natural talent for organization, she lived out her consecration to Jesus, in the midst of her companions, with fidelity and joy.
On 10 September 1946 during the train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa received her “inspiration,” her “call within a call.” On that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate His thirst became the driving force of her life. Over the course of the next weeks and months, by means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to her the desire of His heart for “victims of love” who would “radiate His love on souls.” “Come be My light,” He begged her. “I cannot go alone.” He revealed His pain at the neglect of the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance of Him and His longing for their love. He asked Mother Teresa to establish a religious community, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor. Nearly two years of testing and discernment passed before Mother Teresa received permission to begin. On August 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in a white, blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of her beloved Loreto convent to enter the world of the poor.
After a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. On 21 December she went for the first time to the slums. She visited families, washed the sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and nursed a woman dying of hunger and TB. She started each day in communion with Jesus in the Eucharist and then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve Him in “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.” After some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former students.
On 7 October 1950 the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa began to send her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted to the Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a house in Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania and, eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through the 1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist countries, including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.
In order to respond better to both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963, in 1976 the contemplative branch of the Sisters, in 1979 the Contemplative Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. Yet her inspiration was not limited to those with religious vocations. She formed the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, people of many faiths and nationalities with whom she shared her spirit of prayer, simplicity, sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love. This spirit later inspired the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests as a “little way of holiness” for those who desire to share in her charism and spirit.
During the years of rapid growth the world began to turn its eyes towards Mother Teresa and the work she had started. Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian Padmashri Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honoured her work, while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities. She received both prizes and attention “for the glory of God and in the name of the poor.”
The whole of Mother Teresa’s life and labour bore witness to the joy of loving, the greatness and dignity of every human person, the value of little things done faithfully and with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. But there was another heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her, was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.” The “painful night” of her soul, which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life, led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God. Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus, in His painful and burning longing for love, and she shared in the interior desolation of the poor.
During the last years of her life, despite increasingly severe health problems, Mother Teresa continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving visitors and instructing her Sisters. On 5 September Mother Teresa’s earthly life came to an end. She was given the honour of a state funeral by the Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her response to Jesus’ plea, “Come be My light,” made her a Missionary of Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love of God.
Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness and the favours being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.
On 19 October 2003 Pope John Paul II declared her Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’, and on 4 September 2016, Pope Francis declared her ‘Saint Teresa of Calcutta’, thus placing her among the Saints of the Catholic Church. For the poor, for children, for all who knew and loved her and who pray to her, she continues to be “Mother”.
Collect
God, who called Saint Teresa to respond to the love of your Son thirsting on the Cross with outstanding charity to the poorest of the poor, grant us, we beseech you, by her intercession, to minister to Christ in our suffering brothers and sisters. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
資料來源 References