In 2012, it is obvious that the world is changing. And changing very fast. With the degree of competition increasing at rapid levels and complexities intensifying at an amazing speed, it has become paramount that those who are looking forward to being stalwarts in the various sectors of life become more and more interested in living their lives in such a manner that it would communicate the selflessness of solving demonstrable human problems rather than being selfcentric. Life was never designed to be lived for self, but to be shared with others in meaningful ways. The problem of humanity has always been rooted in selfishness rather than the various things we point to. I am sure a quick analysis of the answers that would proceed from the minds of a large chunk of a faction of any population sample if asked the question what they think humanities biggest problem is would be issues such as religion, culture, politics, HIV/AIDS, and the likes. However intelligent the defense of those people would be, the answers would not be accurate. Those answers would be tantamount to mentioning the effect of a problem rather than dealing with the cause of the effects we see. From the bible, the major effect of sin is selfishness and selfishness births all the various human problems we see in the world today. The only antidote to selfishness is love. Love is what makes a man live life for reasons beyond himself or herself. The world today is in need of men and women who have choosing to lend a helping hand to others. An erudite scholar said it this way: Life is too short to be lived for self only.
Mother Teresa, was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950. For over 45 years, she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity’s expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients. When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, “No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work.” She visited the Soviet republic of Armenia following the 1988 Spitak earthquake, and met with Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the “poorest of the poor” in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace.” She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world’s needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, “What can we do to promote world peace?” She answered “Go home and love your family.” Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: “Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society—that poverty is so hurt able and so much, and I find that very difficult.” She also singled out abortion as ‘the greatest destroyer of peace in the world’.
During her lifetime, Mother Teresa was named 18 times in the yearly Gallup’s most admired man and woman poll as one of the ten women around the world that Americans admired most, finishing first several times in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999, a poll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup’s List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In that survey, she out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries.*
Living life for reasons beyond self is how God intended us to live. As you wake up every day, always remember that “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. (Acts 20:35—KJV).
*www.wikipedia.com (2012