THEY HAD EYES OF THE SAME COLOUR
LIDIA DUDKIEWICZ, THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF ‘NIEDZIELA’
I will begin with a report on a fashion show in Rome, whose income was intended for charity purpose. On a catwalk there appeared models in various outfits. At one moment, the gathered got shocked. A surprised announcer first got speechless and then he said: ‘So far we have seen beautiful girls, now we see a really beautiful woman’. Reporting on that event during this year’s novena at Jasna Góra – Fr. Prof. Janusz królikowski said that this great astonishment of viewers resulted from the fact that Mother Theresa from Calcutta had appeared on the catwalk. The elderly nun, in her carded sari was completely different physically from young models, and it was just her who made everybody delighted, because she ‘presented a testimony of beauty, born from grace of following Christ’. Today we can say that this shock during the fashion show was caused by a saint woman, whose canonization will take place on 4 September 2016.
Mother Theresa was generally very brave and genuine. When in 1979 she was receiving the Peace Noble Award for ‘a fight with poverty and suffering’, she surprised the world when she said that poverty is not only in poor countries but also in western rich countries. In addition – it is much more difficult to remove. This is poverty of a person who feels rejected by others, unneeded, scared. And when Mother Theresa was asked what should be done for the sake of peace in the world – she said: ‘Go home and love your families’. Speaking in the country where abortion takes place every day, she was brave enough to say ‘Please, give me the children who you do not want, and I will bring them up’. Mother Theresa called abortion ‘the biggest destroyer of peace in the world’. In Oslo, when receiving her award, she was being accompanied by her niece, Agi Bojaxhiu Guttadauro, whose interview was on pages of ‘Sunday’ last week and she was a witness of those words. She also said among the others, about a close, friendly relationship of Mother Theresa and John Paul II: ‘They understood and cared about each other and saw the world with the eyes of love’ – she said. What is more, when on 19 October 2003, on the day of beatification of the Mother of the poor, she was close to an altar as the only living member of her family, she could look at the eyes of pope John Paul II and discover that he had eyes of the same colour as her saint aunt.
Canonization of Mother Theresa, planned on 4 September 2016 in Rome, is one of the most wonderful events of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. An Italian cardinal Angelo Comastri, whose interview is in the current issue of “Sunday’ was delighted with the modest nun in a white and blue sari, who devoted her life to the poorest of the poor. Now he is participating in preparations for the solemn canonization but he found his time to present the person of the saint nun to Readers.
He reminded that in 1985 she had spoken in the UNO as ‘the most influential woman on earth’ – she was described so by the general Secretary of UNO at that time, Javier Perez de Cuellar. This most powerful, although filigree and short woman got her power from prayer. She used to speak about herself: ‘I am only a poor nun who prays. When I pray, Jesus pours love into my heart, and I give it to poor people whom I meet on my way’. Here is the whole secret of power of this Missionary of Love. Mother Theresa showed us a road to Heaven. She emphasized that there is only one life, so it must be lived in such a way so as to sow love everywhere. She used to say that ‘when we die, we will take only a suitcase of love’.
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„Niedziela” 36/2016