In her lifetime, she had
already earned the title 'saint of the gutters' and to the thousands of
destitute and needy who she cared for she
was a 'living god'.
And today, Agnes Gonxha
Bojaxhiu, a Catholic nun who served the poor inKolkata,
is formally bestowed the title of Saint Teresa by
Pope John Paul II at a function at the Vatican City.
Her journey from her birth place Skopje, now in Macedonia, to her yeoman work in
West Bengal is itself a 'miracle' but after her
death to attribute this diminutive woman with a Herculean grit for serving the poor of having performed 'miracles'
like curing two people of diseases borders on irrationality.
Mother Teresa should have been made a saint without having
so-called miracles associated with her name.
It is worth highlighting
that the Constitution of India in Article 51A (h) enunciates "to develop
the scientific temper, humanism and the
spirit of inquiry and reform". This
is where attribution of so-called miracles comes into conflict with the
under standings of modern science. But India is complex civilisation where faith, science,
religion and superstition all co-exit mostly in harmony but occasionally in
conflict.
India's best known living
scientist and recent Bharat Ratna Professor CNR Rao on being asked said
"No,I do not believe in
miracles. One in thing general I will tell you, in India there is confusion
between religion, faith,
superstition and science.
"Faith everybody should
have one thing or the other, like if in science you must have faith in the laws
of
physics. Faith is something
everybody should have. If somebody has faith in philosophy or God, I have nothing against it; however,
it should not give rise to superstition.
"Even Einstein said
nobody could be without faith. Religion also you can have any religion, but do
not mix it up with other things in
life. Faith has nothing to do with believing in things that cannot happen
against the laws of physics."
But for Mother Teresa to
officially become a saint she needed to perform some miracles and according to the National Catholic
Register: "The first [miracle] took place in West Bengal, India, and
involved the healing of an Indian woman,
Monica Besra, whose abdominal tumour was so severe that her doctors abandoned hope of saving
her.
"Taken into the care of
the Missionaries of Charity, she continued to decline and endured such agony from the tumour that she
could no longer sleep. On the one-year anniversary of Mother's passing, the sisters at the home placed a
Miraculous Medal that had been touched to the body of Mother Teresa on Besra's stomach. The
suffering woman fell asleep, and when she woke up, her pain was gone. Doctors examined her and found the reason why: The tumour had disappeared
completely."
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