Mother TeresaTHE LOCAL Roman Catholic community is happy with Pope John Paul II's beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on Sunday. To celebrate this event, the Roman Catholic community will today convene a special mass at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kingston, beginning at 5.30 pm. The chief celebrant will be the Rt. Rev. Edgerton Clarke, Archbishop of Kingston.
Born and raised in Albania, Mother Teresa went to India in 1929 as a member of the Sisters of Loreto. Then after a vision where Jesus expressed His burden to see the upliftment of the poor, a strong sense of divine call gripped Mother Teresa. Then in 1948, two years after the vision, she established the Missionaries of Charity Order of the Roman Catholic Church, to attend to the material and spiritual needs of the poorest of the poor. The Order was planted in Jamaica in 1985. The following year, the celebrated nun and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, visited Jamaica.
There are 12 nuns of that Order working in Jamaica at this time. Six are based in St. Elizabeth and the other six in downtown Kingston.
Though the order is international, it has a strong Indian membership. In Jamaica, 10 of the nuns are from India, one from Africa and the other from Bangladesh. Sister Surupa, Superior of the Missionaries of Charity in Kingston, told The Gleaner that she was "very happy" with Mother Teresa's beatification (a preliminary step toward sainthood). Speaking for other members of the Missionaries of Charity in Jamaica she said "All of us are happy. I think the whole universe is happy-In India where I am from, she was regarded as 'The Mother' of the Poor." To celebrate the beatification, she said, the Missionaries of Charity, who are based on Tower Street in Kingston, on Sunday convened a mass of thanksgiving.
Mother Teresa died in 1997 at age 87. She had said of herself "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."
