Mother Teresa [antikvár]

The highest award The tiny nun, dressed in a thin white sari, stood on the speaker's platform before an audience of important, well-dressed, well-fed people. She had no notes. She spoke to the audience very simply, as if to friends. She told them of the world of poverty and suffering that lay beyond the walls of that building, of the streets of Calcutta, and of the misery that lies at the heart of somé of the richest cities in the world. It was December 1979 and Mother Teresa had come to Norway to receive the highest award there is - the Nobel Peace Prize. She was overjoyed, not for herself, but because the world was recognizing the poor she serves: "Personally I am unworthy. I accept it gratefully in the name of the poor." The money from the prize would go to feed the starving and to build homes for people who had none - the lost and lonely, the lepers, the outcasts. In fact, she received a little more than the $190,000 award. She alsó asked the committee to cancel the official ban-quet and let her have the extra money to feed those for whom a bowl of rice was a luxury. The price of that one banquet bought meals for fifteen thousand poor people. A very ordinary sister Mother Teresa was born into an Albánián family on the twenty-sixth of August 1910, in Skopje, Albania. She was the last of three children. Her family name was Bojaxhiu, and when she was just one day old, she was christened Ágnes Gonxha, which means "flower bud." It was a very happy family. Her father was full "She embodies in herself compassion and love of humanity as few in history have done Her entire life has been a personification of service and compassion. These are the imperatives of humán existence which are generally affirmed in words but denied in actions." President N.S. Reddy, presenting Mother Teresa with the Star of India. Opposite: Mother Teresa, with the Norwegian Prímé Minister, shows her Nobel Peace Prize certificate to the world. She received it in Norway on December 11, 1979. At the time, the Washington Post said, "Most ofthe recipients over the years have been politicians and diplomats Occasionally the Norwegian Nobel Committee uses the prize to remind the world there is more than one kind of peace, and that politics is not the only way to pursue it." s