[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 143 (Tuesday, October 14, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12530-S12531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   HONORING THE LIFE OF MOTHER TERESA

  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me today in 
recalling and honoring the life and work of a physically tiny woman 
with an immeasurably large dedication to serving the poorest of the 
world's poor. Known to the world as Mother Teresa, she fulfilled what 
she understood to be her vocation in the world--not as a saint, but as 
a human being flawed and prone to the same temptations as are we all in 
this Chamber. I greatly admire her faithfulness to her purpose, and her 
profound faith in the Maker of us all.
  Mother Teresa was born in August 1910 in Albania and became a Roman 
Catholic nun while still a young woman. A teacher, she was assigned to 
a convent and school in Calcutta, where she discovered a material 
poverty that was scarcely believable. Whatever she had given up in 
dedicating her life to her vocation did not compare to the need she saw 
around her. She left the already demanding work of her convent to found 
the Missionaries of Charity, a religious order of women whose work in 
the world remains service to people who are abandoned, suffering, poor, 
and dying, wherever they may be found.
  Today, when many in the world consider religious commitments as too-
often contentious and divisive rather than fruitful and unifying, we do 
well to ponder the 50 years of work by the Missionaries of Charity in 
more than 700 homes and shelters established in India, Asia, Europe, 
and the Americas. The example they set for sacrificial giving of 
oneself can best be described by Mother Teresa's own statement of her 
mission in this life:

       My community is the poor. Their security is my own. My 
     house is the house of the poor--not just the poor, but the 
     poorest of the poor: those who are so dirty and full of germs 
     that no one goes near them; those who do not go to pray 
     because they are naked; those who do not eat because they do 
     not have the strength; those who collapse on the sidewalks 
     knowing they are about to die while the living walk by 
     without even looking back; those who do not cry because they 
     have no more tears left.

  Many of the people served by Mother Teresa considered her to be a 
living saint. But I find her all the more remarkable because she was 
human, fragile, and equipped with the same stubborn human nature we all 
struggle with when our virtue is tried. We may count ourselves blessed 
if we avoid what Mother Teresa told us is the greatest poverty--that of 
the heart. Like her, we must keep before us those ``not only hungry for 
bread, but hungry for love; not only naked from lack of clothing, but 
naked of human dignity; not only homeless for a house, but homeless for 
understanding and for human respect.''
  Mr. President, I ask that we who are privileged to serve in this 
body, along with all people of goodwill, join the world in remembering 
the life and example of one whose dedication to her duty became her 
love.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today to honor one of 
modern history's most caring and unconditionally loving people on the 
eve of her beatification. Through her work as a teacher and provider to 
the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa of Calcutta demonstrated the 
essence of what it means to love.
  It was March of 2002 that I was humbled and privileged during a 
personal visit to the Nirmal Hriday, Pure of Heart, Home for the Dying 
Destitutes in Calcutta, started by Mother Teresa in 1952 to give hope 
and care to those with neither. Although Mother Teresa passed away 5 
years earlier, the spirit of kindness and concern that nearly 
transcended human boundaries lived on in that small hospice, and showed 
on the faces of its volunteers, and shined in the smiles of nuns 
carrying on her work.
  That day I was also honored to visit with Mother Teresa's successor, 
Sister Nirmala. Sister Nirmala and I spoke briefly of the importance of 
continuing Mother Teresa's work, and in some small way, I hope the 
recognition we provide will further that cause--that comfort, care, and 
love she gave unconditionally.
  Born in 1910, Mother Teresa became a Roman Catholic nun at the age of 
18. She began by teaching geography and history at St. Mary's School in 
Calcutta, but became anxious to aid those outside of the convent. 
Twenty years later, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a 
religious order based on attending to the impoverished and afflicted 
whom no one else served. Mother Teresa later turned her focus to the 
establishment of care programs for AIDS victims.
  Although she was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, as 
well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Foundation for Hospice 
and Homecare's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985, Mother Teresa felt 
most honored by the joy of providing comfort and care to those in need.
  As her beatification by Pope John Paul II nears, we pause to reflect 
upon the example set forth by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Mother Teresa 
demonstrated true and unconditional love

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for her fellow persons, giving herself fully to their care, and shall 
forever be remembered as one of the world's most generous and inspiring 
human beings.

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