Express train will carry Mother Teresa’s message across India
By Anto Akkara
KOLKATA (ENI)
— More than 25,000 people gathered at Kolkata’s Sealdah railway
station for the launch of the “Mother Express” train, a highlight
of the centenary celebrations of the birth of Mother Teresa.
“Mother
has become a household name here and the people are proud that she belonged
to this city,” said Mamta Bannerji, a Hindu who is India’s
federal railways minister and who hails from Kolkata, before he flagged
off the special train funded by the railway ministry.
Painted in white
and blue, the colour of the Missionaries of Charity congregation founded
by Mother Teresa, the air-conditioned Mother Express is a mobile exhibition
about the life of Mother Teresa. It is to travel across the country to
spread her message of love and care.
Born on Aug. 26,
1910 in Skopje in what is now the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Agnes Bojaxhiu reached India in 1929 as a Loreto nun with the name Sister
Mary Teresa. She founded a congregation to serve the “poorest of
the poor” in 1950 from a rented house in Calcutta, as Kolkata was
then called.
The Missionaries
of Charity congregation now has 765 houses in 137 countries with more
than 5,020 nuns, 370 brothers and 38 fathers.
The celebrations
in Kolkata began with an early morning solemn mass at the chapel of the
mother house and the lighting of a candle at her tomb by Cardinal Telesphore
Toppo, the former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference
of India.
“The poor
were attracted to Mother because they perceived that her compassion was
authentic. In her presence, they felt consoled and assured that God loves
them and cares for them,” Sister Prema, the superior general of
the Missionaries of Charity, said after the prayers.
Throughout the
day, pilgrims and non-Christian admirers of Mother Teresa visited her
tomb, including Tibetan spiritual leader the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa and
Soven Chatterji, the mayor of Kolkata.
“Mother
made Kolkata famous. We cannot forget her,” Chatterji told ENInews.
He said the city is to mark the centenary by erecting a life-size statue
of Mother Teresa on a street renamed in her honour.
An international
film festival in Nandan, the film centre of Kolkata, was inaugurated by
Sister Prema. Ashoke Biswas, the Church of North India bishop of Kolkata,
and a number of other bishops attended.
“This is a cinematic tribute to Mother Teresa. With these films, we want to spread her message of love and compassion to the younger generation,” explained Sunil Lucas, co-ordinator of the film festival.
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