100 Years of Love

By Alice Iseminger (Seniors Helping Seniors), August 10, 2010

She bends low to hear a whispered plea. Gently she touches a cheek and holds an outstretched hand in hers. She loves. She prays. She offers help for the blind, the disable, the aged, and the dying. The voice, the touch, the person of Mother Teresa is known the world over.

It is fitting that we should remember this diminutive giant of a woman on her 100th birthday. Born in Macedonia of Albanian decent on August 26th, 1910, Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was a young school girl when she felt a calling to serve the Lord. In 1928 she left her home and traveled to Ireland to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary where she received the name Sister Mary Teresa. In less than six months, this 18-year old was on her way to India to teach at the St. Mary’s School for Girls.

In 1937 she took her final vows and became Mother Teresa. As a beloved teacher and later principal of the school, she was quite content with her life in the Loreto Convent. It wasn’t until she was 38-years-old that she felt the push to go beyond her comfort zone and out into the streets of Calcutta to help the “poorest of the poor.” She describes this calling as the moment that “Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls” took hold of her heart and her life. This “desire to satiate His thirst” became her driving force.

She was gripped by her desire to reach out to others in love, to “help all those who felt unwanted, unloved and uncared for in society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.” She left the safe-haven of her convent and put on her now-familiar white sari with the blue border and began her work. In 1950 she received the Vatican’s permission to start what would be become the Missionaries of Charity. Like ripples in a pond, her single-minded passion for this mission—to help those who couldn’t help themselves—expanded from Calcutta, India to include charity centers in over 120 countries around the world, including the United States of America.

She was first introduced to the Western world by journalist Malcolm Muggeridge in his 1971 book and documentary of the same name, Something Beautiful for God: Mother Teresa of Calcutta. “Pretty well everyone who has met her would agree, I think, that she is a unique person in the world today,” wrote Muggeridge, “not in our vulgar celebrity sense of having neon lighting about her head. Rather in the opposite sense — of someone who has merged herself in the common face of mankind, and identified herself with human suffering and privation.”

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When she received the prize, the 69-year old was asked, “What can we do to promote world peace?” She answered. “Go home and love your family.”
Mother Teresa eloquently expressed her belief that we were all capable to “be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, and kindness in your smile.” In her 87 years on this Earth she presented her life as a living sacrifice to love. Her rock-solid belief in the value and dignity of every person, her challenge to engage in acts of service with love and a smile, and her faith in God speak to us still.

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Author’s note: Alice Iseminger, along with business partner Janet McGarvey, is the co-owner of Seniors Helping Seniors® in Northern Ohio. For more information about Seniors Helping Seniors contact Dave VanderLinde Jr. at 616-234-0190.

Kiran Yocom, co-founder of Seniors Helping Seniors® worked for Mother Teresa in India and dedicated 14 years of her life to her mission before moving to the United States. Mother Teresa’s passion for loving others and the sanctity of human life are woven into the very core of Seniors Helping Seniors®.