Mother Teresa: The saint and her nation

By C M Paul

Darjeeling: Living in Darjeeling, a place connected to Mother Teresa’s ‘call within the call,’ I find the latest book ‘Mother Teresa, The Saint and Her Nation’ a fascinating reading as it offers hitherto unknown information about the saint.

In the present work Gëzim Alpion probably the most authoritative Mother Teresa scholar, argues that Mother Teresa’s life and her nation’s history, especially her compatriots’ relationship with Catholicism, are interconnected.

The 284 page book published by Bloomsbury India (2020) focuses on the interplay of individual and society, the intersection of biography and history, and the transformation of Mother Teresa’s personal troubles into public issues.

It is for the first time that any Mother Teresa scholar attempts to interpret Mother Teresa’s traumas, ordeals and achievements as a person and as a missionary by exploring hitherto ignored influence of her ethnocultural and spiritual heritage.

The material in this book is organized in three parts, which in total have 15 chapters.

Part one, entitled ‘Who Are Mother Teresa’s Albanians?’ is an expose of the history of the nun’s nation from Illyrian antiquity until the postmodern era consisting of six chapters.

Part two entitled ‘History from Below: Mother Teresa’s Albanian Roots and Skopje Years’ has five chapters (seven to eleven) focusing on the nun’s genealogy and assesses her background’s impact on her decision to join the religious life and the extent to which it affected the nature of her ministry. The author needs to be lauded as most of the information and analyses recorded in this part appear for the first time in Mother Teresa scholarship.

For instance, this is the first time in Mother Teresa scholarship that the issue of Roza’s (mother) inheritance in Kosova is explored thanks to the information unearthed about the nun’s maternal ancestors, and their blood feud, and their memory removed from vast Mother Teresa literature.

Presented also are the intriguing circumstances that led to the production of Brunello Rondi’s 1982 Italian biopic La Voce: Infanzia e giovenezza di Madre Teresa di Calcutta (The Voce: The Childhood and Youth of Mother Teresa of Calcutta) which was under embargo for 15 years. The film was premiered after Mother Teresa’s death by Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) on 6th September 1997 at 3.40 am, eight hours after her death in Calcutta.

Part three titled ‘Mother Teresa’s Relations with the Holy See and the Albanian Nation’, has four chapters (twelve to fifteen) exploring the nun’s personality, work and legacy from two perspectives. One, the significant role the Vatican played in Mother Teresa’s life, and two, assesses her relationship with her native country and people from her early years in Skopje, from 1910 until her passing in 1997.

The final chapter (fifteen) compares and contrasts Mother Teresa and legendary hero Skanderbeg, the two most well-known Albanian personalities since the 15th century.

In the present work, the author also busts the myth endorsed by Malcolm Muggeridge in 1971 that ‘legends do not have biographies’ by providing wealth of information indicating that no one’s life is void of biographies.

As always, Alpion’s book is insightful and original, creative and extensively researched to reveal Mother Teresa in the manner of a blooming lotus with roots, and mud and all. Alpion has penned what will certainly become the standard guide to Mother Teresa’s heritage and her life.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/mother-teresa-9789389165067/
https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/mother-teresa-9789389165043/