[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 117 (Monday, September 8, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8877-S8878]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO MOTHER TERESA

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, like the Chaplain, and on behalf of the 
Senate, I would like to pay tribute today to Mother Teresa. I know that 
I am speaking for every Member of the Senate in expressing our sorrow 
in the loss of Mother Teresa, this wonderful lady.
  At the same time, we realize that if ever there was a life well 
lived, it was hers. Her passing helps us understand the psalm's comfort 
for those who mourn, that ``precious in the eyes of the Lord is the 
death of His faithful ones.''
  Only 3 months ago, Mother Teresa came here to the Capitol. She joined 
us as we gave to her the Congressional Gold Medal in support of her 
work for the poorest of the world's poor. Even then, everyone present 
understood that it would only be a matter of time before her work, 
never finished, would rest in other hands.
  But what an honor it was for us to meet her. The leaders were there, 
and the Members of the House and the Senate. That was a special 
occasion. We all felt touched by this elderly lady, who at once was so 
frail and at the same time so tough and so unconcerned about anything 
except the suffering of others.
  This was a lady who, on an earlier visit to Washington, when she was 
being escorted to a White House car

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waiting to take her to the airport, inquired about how her companions 
would get to the airport. When she was told they would go in a 
different vehicle, she declared everyone must stay together and take 
the bus.
  To put it mildly, fame, and accolades were not important to her. What 
was important to her--what shaped her life from the Balkan village 
where she was born to the places of power where she was honored--was a 
devotion to the most vulnerable members of the human family, especially 
children, both before and after their birth.
  When she first visited the Capitol back in 1981, one of our 
colleagues, then Senator James Buckley of New York, remarked, ``There 
is no telling what may be started by someone like her, who plays with 
fire by striking sparks off the flinty heart.''
  Today, 16 years later, it is magnificently clear what she did start, 
literally around the world. Out of her poverty, she enriched mankind. 
Out of her loneliness, she showed us the heights of the human spirit. 
From the perspective of this century's end, we have a better 
understanding of what true greatness really is.
  The monsters of our era--Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and the rest--they and 
their ideologies are in the trash heap of history. But what Mother 
Teresa launched, with bare hands and with an open heart, is going to 
last far longer than anyone can imagine.
  Sad as our loss of her may be, we should not forget that her passing 
would not be viewed by her as a tragedy, but as a triumph. She had that 
assurance from the person to whom she gave her life, who surely has 
said to her, ``I was hungry, and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty, and 
you gave me to drink.''
  So as we celebrate her life, let us now celebrate her joy.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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