With the change of guard at Mother House in Kolkata, a new lease of life is injected into the Missionaries of Charity, the worldwide religious congregation, involved in serving the poorest of the poor. A new team with a new mandate, under the leadership of the first Indian Superior General of the congregation, Sr Mary Joseph Michael, 68, is set to continue the great legacy left behind by Mother Teresa.

The Missionaries of Charity (MC) that Mother Teresa founded, in the same year when India became a republic adopting its Constitution, has come a long way, and time and tide have changed during these seven decades. Therefore, a fresh look at the religious congregation that the 'saint of the gutters' had begun is sure to help us understand the numerous challenges the 'angels of hope' are facing today.

Sure enough, Mother Teresa responded to the space and time she lived through, alleviating the sufferings of the sick, the dying and the destitute, who had no one to care for them. Fortunately, the political leadership, during the nascent years of the congregation, had seen how Mother Teresa's work was indeed the work of the government, and therefore came forward to help her in whatever way they could.

The efforts of Mother Teresa to take care of the dying destitute in Nirmal Hriday at Kalighat in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the abandoned and unwanted children with disabilities of one kind or another at Shishu Bhavan, also in Kolkata, had received unprecedented acceptance in the hearts of general public. Soon she marched forward to receive awards and accolades from the government.

Following Mother Teresa's leadership, the MC has seen Sr Nirmala Joshi and Sr Prema Pierick, who had led the congregation through turbulent times, especially with hostile forces trying hard to find fault with the Sisters and attempting to malign the 'sacred' name of the Bharat Ratna awardee, who is still considered one of the enduring faces of the City of Joy.

Critics and Criticism

Already from the time of Mother Teresa, while there were so many people around the world, who had a lot of appreciation and admiration for Mother Teresa and her noble works, there were also ardent critics of her works for the poorest of the poor. Much of the criticism against Mother and her works are still alive, the most important one being that she was doing the works of mercy with a hidden motive of converting the gullible to Christianity, which had been proved wrong.

Another severe criticism of Mother is on the crude way the poor and the dying were treated, without providing them with decent facilities in all the homes they were housed and cared for. It is true that the homes of the MC do not have world-class facilities to provide the best of boarding and lodging to the homeless, sick and suffering. But which other organization could provide such facilities free of cost? Would even the government provide such facilities to those who have no one to care for? The MC homes might lack some of the fancy facilities, which the government may impose on the nuns, but the people who go there find peace and security, which no amount of money and luxury can ever buy.

One of the hard-hitting critics of Mother Teresa and her works of mercy in the recent times is the saffron brigade, especially those who feel threatened that the Mother Teresa sisters would convert the people whom they serve with inducements and enticements.

Therefore, some of the right-wing Hindu fanatic groups indulge in maligning the name of the Sisters, making use of the state machinery to harass them, finding fault with whatever the nuns do to provide the hopeless and helpless an assurance of safety and security.

The leadership of any religious congregation is required to focus attention on two important aspects of the life of the members -- cura personalis (care of the persons) and cura apostolica (care of the apostolates). Even if one of the two is not given much attention, then it is sure to create problems from within and without. Both these aspects are equally important and are complementary in nature.

Mother Teresa, while choosing "actual poverty" (voluntarily choosing destitution and extreme forms of poverty), had said no to the petty comforts of the world. The sisters were taught to forego some of the basic amenities and facilities for their upkeep. Mother herself lived a very austere life and invited the Sisters to follow her footsteps, imitating Christ the poor. But with changing times, changes are inevitable.

With the vow of obedience and the fourth vow, whole-hearted free service to the poorest of the poor, the sisters might accept all the directions of the superiors, and yet there could be areas where the sisters might require certain relaxation from the set norms. It is depending on how the leadership, especially the new Superior General and her team, handles such crucial issues, that the future of the congregation could be projected.

Rigidity vs. Laxity

The MC is known as a rigid religious congregation because of the legacy they have inherited; they may also be termed traditionalists and orthodox in their outlook. It is thanks to the MC’s traditionalism that they have not been swept over by the neo-culture of consumerism, commercialization and cosmopolitanism, which had been causing havoc in several religious congregations. For instance, until very recently, the congregation was averse to use of computers, and today an exception has been made only in Mother House in Kolkata towards accounting purposes. Similarly, mobile/smartphones have not had place in MC houses, but thankfully with the gradual demise of the land-phone, mobile phones have begun to find a place in their houses.

It appears that there have been areas where the congregation had been close-fisted, not allowing certain amount of freedom and independence in the traditional practices, handed over from none other than Mother. Failure to read the signs of the times and responding to them, may lead the congregation to be out of sync with the time and space they are living today. This perhaps is one of the problems the congregation has to face in the years to come.

With changing times and changes in perspectives, some of the young girls who aspire to follow the footsteps of Mother Teresa may find it hard to tread the same path, and may even wish the path tailor-made for the modern generation, taking into account the background they are coming from and the kind of knowledge base they are bringing to the congregation. With the dwindling number of vocations to the congregation, if the congregation does not re-invent itself, it might be hard to get enough girls to take the mantle in future.

In order to be relevant to changing times, the MC congregation has to adapt itself to the new avenues open for them to reach out to the unreached and the abandoned. Mother Teresa was open to such a possibility, and her daughters are invited to follow her footsteps.

Formation for Mission

Much of the formation of the sisters are given and received within the closed quarters of their own set-up, with very little interaction with other religious people, or secular institutes, and this sometimes could create a ghetto-mentality among the young sisters, who might restrain their God-given gifts in order to tow the official ways of being and serving the poor. An openness to formation along with others, providing the sisters with the kind of formation which would equip them to meet the challenges may be not only a possibility, but also a necessity for tomorrow.

There may also be a tendency in providing help to sisters who are struggling to cope with the changing situations, to seek the help of those who are largely from either United States of America or from Europe, overlooking the resources available in India. Mother Teresa had desired whole-heartedly to be an Indian nun, serving Jesus, and this implies that the outlook and solutions to the problems could also emerge from this land.

Time to tighten the seat-belt

It is almost certain that things are not going to be smooth-sail for the MC in the days to come, and we have witnessed signs of it in the last few years. The saffron brigade is sure to be after the MC, the visible sign of Christianity in the country, and the administration might take the side of the hardliners to find fault with what the sisters do, or what they have failed to do. There are accusations against the sisters, especially from the states governed by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), and it calls the MC family to tighten their seat belts to be prudent and vigilant, so that the mischief-makers do not have a chance to trick the gullible sisters.

It has often come to light that when the government machinery demands so much of documentation and adherence to the norms set by them, their own houses and shelter-homes are far from keeping in tune with their own recommendations. In fact, in many areas, the government machinery may have to learn from the sisters on reaching out to and serving the most neglected people of the nation, without expecting anything in return.

However, it is time that the sisters are also introduced to some standard operating procedures in caring for the physically and mentally challenged people, the victims of HIV/AIDS, those suffering from leprosy and tuberculosis. Since most of the sisters join the congregation with class 12 pass, their knowledge on technicalities and record-keeping might require some training for all the sisters, and the congregation needs to look into this aspect too, so that the sisters are not caught unawares. 

It is obvious that though Mother Teresa breathed her last in 1998, her spirit is fully alive in the sisters and her homes, and her invisible presence, while being a great source of comfort and consolation, may at times also constrain them, allowing them to go beyond the prescribed line of control, set by the foundress. It is, therefore, in allowing the Spirit of God to take control of their life and mission that the MC will be able to be a beacon of hope for the hopeless in the years to come.

(The writer is an associate of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata and the author of “Morning Star of Divine Mercy: Mother Teresa”, a biography of Mother Teresa in Bengali)