Mother Teresa: A Biography (10 page)

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M O T H E R T E R E S A

A HOLISTIC WHOLE

The theology that Mother Teresa followed is rooted in Church teachings prior to Vatican II. This doctrine emphasizes the spirit over the flesh; as such, it is the spirit that must be taken care of first. This attitude stressed the glory of suffering, as the human body was often identified as weak and sinful. Modern Catholic theologians have modified this view and speak of the importance of good health for both body and soul. Glorified suffering serves no purpose and is thought to be an evil in which no good is found. To suffer is only good if there is a purpose and the possibility of turning it into something worthwhile.

For Mother Teresa, by contrast, suffering was the expected path one must travel in order to reach heaven. This attitude helps explain how such places as Nirmal Hriday, which became the home for the dying, would be run. In caring to the very ill and dying, Mother Teresa was drawing on the traditional practice of offering solace and comfort instead of medical aid. This practice dates from the medieval period when religious orders ran hospices for pilgrims or sanctuaries for the poor. There was, at best, limited medical care available; what the sisters did in these places was help to prepare the dying person’s soul for heaven.

By the nineteenth century, this attitude underwent a dramatic transformation with sisters such as Mother Mary Aikenhead, founder of the Irish Sisters of Charity, whose work helped lay the foundation for the modern hospice movement. There were others too such as Dame Cicely Saunders or Sister Frances Dominica, who helped change the way that religious orders treated the seriously ill and dying. Their work is often overshadowed by Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, whom many in the West believe had done the most to transform the way the dying are cared for. In India and other Third World countries, there is little choice in how one dies. Because of that, Mother Teresa’s work had been elevated and in some cases misunderstood. It was an approach that would make her an easy target in later years.

But for now, many of these criticisms were far in the future. Clearly, the Missionaries of Charity had struck a resounding chord within the Calcutta community. For Mother Teresa, there was still much to do. She and her order had only just begun their work.

NOTES

1. Kathryn Spink,
Mother Teresa
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1997), p. 44.

“ R I G O R O U S P OV E RT Y I S O U R S A F E G U A R D ”

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2. Raghu Rai and Navin Chawla,
Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of
Mother Teresa
(Rockport, Mass.: Element, 1999), p. 47.

3. Edward Le Joly,
Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Biography
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 23.

4. Anne Sebba,
Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image
(New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 169.

Chapter 6

KALIGHAT

On a rainy day in 1952, a young boy, no more than 13 or 14 years old, lay dying on a neighborhood street. He appeared to be one of the many beggar children who are found in the streets of Calcutta. Naked and emaci-ated, the boy’s limbs looked more like matchsticks than arms or legs. A concerned resident called the ambulance, which took the boy to a nearby hospital. The hospital, already overcrowded, refused to help. Instead, the boy was dumped in a Calcutta street gutter where he died alone and unknown. At some point the city sent a van or a cart to haul the body away.

Although such scenes were common in Calcutta, a local newspaper picked up the story of the dead boy and heightened public attention to the dying poor.

Mother Teresa was no stranger to the problem. In the increasing number of talks she gave to the public about her congregation, she related a very similar story. One day, when she and another sister were just beginning their work, they encountered what appeared to be a bundle of rags lying on a street. As they approached, they realized, to their horror, that the bundle was not just rags, but a middle-aged woman, half-conscious, her face half-eaten away by rats and ants.

Together, Mother Teresa and her companion carried the woman to the nearest hospital. The nurses refused to take the woman, claiming the hospital had no beds. When Mother Teresa asked hospital officials where she could go, they told her to take the woman back where she had found her.

Frustrated, Mother Teresa refused to leave until she had a promise that the hospital would make room for the sick woman. In the end, hospital authorities relented and gave the dying woman a mattress on the floor.

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She died a few hours later with Mother Teresa by her side. It was then, Mother Teresa told her audiences, that she had decided to find a place for the dying and take care of them herself.

ASKING ONLY FOR A PLACE

“When Mother Teresa began her work in the slums,” recalled one sister, “we often found people dying or sometimes dead.”1 When possible, the sisters took the ailing person to the hospital, where more often than not they were turned away. Often there was no place to take them at all, leaving the sisters unable to offer anything else except comfort and company until the person died. At one point, Mother Teresa rented two rooms for five rupees each in the Motijihl slum. But the space, only eight feet square, could not even begin to hold the numbers of dying people who needed help; at best only two to three persons could be accommodated, leaving little room for the sisters to tend to them. When one of the patients died during the night, the others, now fearful, fled. Undaunted, the sisters continued to bring the sick and dying to the two rooms, while praying that they could find a larger building adequate to their needs.

Mother Teresa also realized that, if she were to realize her goal of establishing a home for the dying, then she needed more than prayers. Determined, she went to the city’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ahmed.

Explaining her desire to him, Mother Teresa promised that if he would help her find a place, she would do the rest. The doctor, well aware of Mother Teresa’s growing reputation, treated her request seriously. By offering to help, Mother Teresa and her nuns would be relieving some of the already heavy burden the city faced in dealing with dying people on the streets.

In fact, Dr. Ahmed knew of a place that might perfectly suit Mother Teresa’s needs. Together they went to inspect a building, which had been used as a pilgrim’s hostel near the Temple of Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and fertility. Located in the Kalighat district, the temple was situ-ated near the banks of the Hooghly River. The site was popular among the Hindus who came to worship at the temple. According to legend, Kali’s father made a sacrifice in order to guarantee the birth of a son. Unfortunately, the gift did not include an offering to Shiva, Kali’s husband. Insulted by the slight to her husband, Kali committed suicide. Shiva, desolate over the death of his wife, carried her in his arms, threatening destruction wherever he went. To save mankind, another god, Vishnu, hurled a discus at Kali’s corpse. The body shattered, falling in pieces to the ground, which is now considered sacred.

K A L I G H AT

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Of all the consecrated ground, the most sacred was the area where the toes of Kali’s right foot lay. On that spot, a temple to the goddess was built. Over time, the temple was surrounded by streets bearing pictures of the deity and became an important and symbolic center of worship for Hindus throughout India. Some came to fulfill a vow; others journeyed seeking cure for an illness. Still others came to celebrate important ceremonies such as naming rites for infants, marriages, or cremations on one of the funeral pyres located near the temple. The religious importance of the temple of Kali was so great that many Hindus wished to be cremated there.

The building that Dr. Ahmed showed Mother Teresa consisted of two great rooms set at right angles and linked by a passageway. Calcutta officials had received complaints that squatters were misusing the building, and so wished to have someone occupy it to save it from further destruction. Besides the large, airy rooms, there was also electricity, gas for cooking, and a large enclosed courtyard where patients could take the air and sun and where clothes and bedding could be hung to dry. Mother Teresa decided on the spot that she would accept the building; the doctor, acting on behalf of the city, agreed to let her have it provisionally. When asked later why she accepted the doctor’s offer, she explained that since the building was associated with the famous Hindu temple and that pilgrims used to come to rest there, so would the dying before continuing their final journey to heaven. Almost immediately, Mother Teresa and several of her nuns and novitiates set to work. The quarters had fallen into terrible condition and needed to be cleaned from top to bottom to make them ready for the new arrivals.

NIRMAL HRIDAY

On August 22, 1952, the pilgrim’s hostel opened under the name Nirmal Hriday, which is Bengali for Pure or Immaculate Heart. Since it opened on the day that celebrates the Virgin’s Immaculate Heart, the building was named in her honor. To make ready for the patients, the nuns had placed low cots and mattresses on ledges in both the large rooms, which, when filled to capacity, would hold 30 men in one room and 30 women in another. But Mother Teresa and her helpers did not have much time to contemplate this latest offering from Providence.

They soon took to the streets in search of the hopelessly ill and suffering who had no place to go.

Early on, Mother Teresa laid down some rules for Nirmal Hriday. No leprosy patients would be admitted. This was done to allay the fears of 7 0

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other patients who might refuse to come or try to leave. Mother Teresa also instituted these rules to calm the fears of the local residents and pilgrims who lived near or worshipped at the temple. It was implicitly understood that people from all religious creeds and races would be welcome at Nirmal Hriday. Mother Teresa also decided that only patients refused by city hospitals, of whom there were many, would be admitted. Soon, city ambulances made their way to the doors of Nirmal Hriday to deliver patients whom the city’s hospitals had rejected. But Mother Teresa and the other nuns continued to search the streets for the ill and dying, whom they transported to the home in a wheelbarrow.

Those brought to Nirmal Hriday were given medical treatment whenever possible. Patients who were beyond saving received the last rites according to their faith; for Hindus, this meant water from the nearby Ganges on their lips; for the followers of Islam, readings from the Koran (the Islamic holy book); for those who were Catholic, confession and communion. While recovery from their ailments was cause for thankful-ness, the primary goal of Nirmal Hriday was to offer those who were dying a chance to pass away in peace and dignity. As Mother Teresa once stated,

“A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—

loved and wanted.”2

A MISSION UNDER FIRE

Not everyone was pleased about the creation of Nirmal Hriday. Although Mother Teresa believed the hostel’s proximity to the shrine was beneficial for the dying, residents of the area as well as visitors to the shrine, felt differently. Many believed that having a home for the dying nearby defiled the temple grounds. As Father Van Exem remembered, the situation was full of bitter irony. Even though the home for the dying was near a temple honoring a deity of death, “people did not want the dying to come there actually to die.”3 Many days, Mother Teresa and her nuns faced angry demonstrators shouting at them to leave. On several occasions, protestors threw stones at the nuns. There were even death threats made against the Missionaries of Charity and Mother Teresa. A man once threatened to kill Mother Teresa as she was making her way to the home.

She did not move and told the man that if he killed her, she would only reach God sooner. The man let her pass.

Other Hindus complained that in tending to Hindu patients, Mother Teresa and her nuns were also trying to convert the dying to Christianity.

The Brahmins (upper-class Indians), who served as temple priests, wrote regularly to the city of Calcutta, complaining about Nirmal Hriday, asking K A L I G H AT

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the city to evict the tenants. They argued that the agreement made with Mother Teresa was only provisional, and that she and her patients be removed from the area as soon as possible.

Finally, Dr. Ahmed, accompanied by a police officer, went to Nirmal Hriday to see for themselves what was really going on. As they entered the building, they saw Mother Teresa pulling maggots from the flesh of a patient. The stench was so overwhelming that the two men could barely stay in the room. Dr. Ahmed heard Mother Teresa telling the dying patient to say a prayer from his religion and she would say a prayer from hers.

Together, she said, they both have offered something beautiful to God.

When she turned and saw the two men, she offered to show them around the home. The police officer, with tears in his eyes, said no, that there was no need to see anything else. Upon returning to the demonstrating crowd outside, the policeman spoke and said that he would remove Mother Teresa from the premises, but only if the women of the neighborhood came in to continue her work. Although the visit from Dr. Ahmed soothed the situation somewhat, hostility remained toward the home and the nuns, especially from the Brahmin priests, who continued to petition the city to remove Mother Teresa, her nuns, and the patients from the hostel.

Then, one day, a young priest at the temple, who had been one of Mother Teresa’s most vocal critics, fell ill. Vomiting blood, he was diagnosed with the last stages of tuberculosis. No hospital would admit him, and so it was that he came to Nirmal Hriday to die. He was given a place in a corner and the nuns lovingly tended him. He died not long afterward.

When the other Brahmin priests learned what had happened and how he had been treated by the Missionaries of Charity, their hostilities subsided.

They realized then what others were learning too: the nuns at Nirmal Hriday took care of all who came with a love and tenderness and asked for nothing in return.

LIFE AT NIRMAL HRIDAY

Like the Motherhouse on Lower Circular Road, daily life at Nirmal Hriday had a routine all its own. Anyone could enter Nirmal Hriday just by walking through the door. The large open rooms remained divided into two wards: one for men, the other for women. A simple board hung in the hall listing the number of men and women currently being treated at Nirmal Hriday. In the beginning, the dying were laid on the black marble floor. Soon, though, each room contained three rows of low iron beds, with two rows resting on a raised platform. Behind each bed a number was 7 2

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painted on the wall to help keep count of patients and beds. Patients who needed fluids had intravenous tubes connected to various bottles. Those patients who were dying were placed near the entrance of each ward, so the sisters could better tend them. Nirmal Hriday was quiet, too, with the only sounds coming from the sisters moving about or a medical treatment being administered. At one end of the hall was a burlap curtain; behind this, the dead were kept until it was time for burial. In many cases, after a patient died, local religious groups representing the Islamic, Hindu, or Christian communities claimed the bodies in order to bury the deceased according to his or her religious beliefs.

From the day Nirmal Hriday opened, Mother Teresa kept a meticulous record of the number of cases admitted. Upon admittance, each patient’s name, age, and address were recorded; whether the patient died or was released was also recorded. For those with no name or home, the entry was labeled “Unknown” with the date of admittance recorded. Over the years, with the aid of better hygiene and nutrition among the population and the construction of more hospitals and clinics tending to the poor, Nirmal Hriday saw its mortality rate drop from almost 50 percent to 10 percent.

As word of Nirmal Hriday spread, volunteers came forward to aid Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in their work. Hindu pilgrims who came to worship at the temple now made contributions to Nirmal Hriday. A local businessman sent a delivery boy every month with a supply of Indian cigarettes known as
bidis
to give to the patients, and in time decided to deliver them himself. On Sundays, some of the wealthy members of Calcutta society came to Nirmal Hriday to wash and shave the patients. Other volunteers came to help clean out wounds, cut hair, or feed the patients. Still others cleaned the rooms, washing floors by hand with a mixture of water, ashes, and disinfectant. Almost all who visited left Nirmal Hriday transformed. For Mother Teresa, such experiences were necessary to understanding the plight of the poor. “Don’t just look around like a spectator,” she said to newcomers, “really look with your ears and your eyes, and you will be shown what you can do to help.”4