Mother Teresa's legacy lives on………

KOLKATA; The destitute and the diseased still gather outside Mother Teresa’s clinics in this sprawling city in eastern India, where the ethnic Albanian nun, known simply as ''Mother'', dedicated her life to helping the poorest of the poor.
Mother Teresa died 11 years ago on a Wednesday, and many of those who rely on her order, the Missionaries of Charity, never met the tiny, frail woman who became a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a global icon of selflessness and devotion.
People love her just the same and her name, and her legacy, still provides inspiration, comfort and care.Many would have been dead if the sisters had not brought the diseased people to “Nirmal Hriday” or “pure heart”. The first of the many clinics that Mother Teresa opened in Calcutta's ramshackle. Nirmal Hriday is also a home for people who cannot afford to look after their children. There are many people today also who have received care, education and also training so that they could find a job themselves.
Mother Teresa came to Calcutta in 1929 as Sister Teresa after she heard a call from God to serve the poorest of the poor. She set up schools for street children and medical clinics for slum-dwellers
In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity. The group is still housed in the same four-storey building that Calcutta residents know as Mother House.
When she died on Sept. 5, 1997 at 87years, the Missionaries of Charity had nearly 4,000 nuns and ran roughly 600 orphanages, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics around the world.
Some were concerned that the order would flounder without Mother Teresa’s charisma and leadership. But the Missionaries of Charity has maintained its standards.
The group has continued to function in the same spirit and work with the same sincerity among the poor and unprivileged.''Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the 'Saint of Calcutta, reveals Mother Teresa’s anguish over the crisis of faith, and the pain she felt over her separation from God. Some writings indicate that, at times, she may have doubted the existence of God.''It is the path God chose for her deep interior purification and transformation.'' Don’t these words of mother inspire us to do something in life?
The past decade has seen the Missionaries of Charity expand into new countries and open new clinics. There are now more than 4,800 sisters and more than 750 homes around the world; according to the group. But Mother Teresa was not beloved by all.
Kolkata: The destitute and the diseased still gather outside MotherTeresa's clinics in this sprawling city in eastern India, where the ethnic Albanian nun, known simply as ''Mother'', dedicated her life to helping the poorest of the poor.
Mother Teresa died 10 years ago on a Wednesday, and many of those who rely on her order, the Missionaries of Charity, never met the tiny, frail woman who became a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a global icon of selflessness and devotion.
But they love her just the same and her name, and her legacy, still provide inspiration, comfort and care, said volunteers as well as those who receive food, shelter, medicine, comfort and more from her group.
Gopal Das, 50, was living on the streets with a malignant stomach tumor, and Ninandath, who goes by one name, had a festering leg wound when Missionaries of Charity sisters found them.
''We would have been dead if the sisters had not brought us here,'' said Das.
He was staying at Nirmal Hriday, or ''Pure Heart,'' the first of the many clinics that MotherTeresa opened in Calcutta's ramshackle neighborhoods during her nearly seven decades in India.
Moon Moon Mondal, 17, was raised there because her parents couldn't afford to keep her at home.
She thanks the nuns for taking care of her when no one else would and, just as importantly, for giving her an education and training so she could find a job and look after herself. She returns most days to visit her brother and sister, who still live at the center, and to see the nuns.
Mother Teresa came to Calcutta in 1929 as Sister Teresa after she said she heard a call from God to serve the poorest of the poor. She set up schools for street children and medical clinics for slum-dwellers.
In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, her own order. The group is still housed in the same four-story building that Calcutta residents know as Mother House.
When she died on Sept. 5, 1997 at 87, the Missionaries of Charity had nearly 4,000 nuns and ran roughly 600 orphanages, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics around the world.
Some were concerned that the order would flounder without MotherTeresa's charisma and leadership. But people both inside and outside the group say the Missionaries of Charity has maintained its standards.
The group has ''continued to function in the same spirit and work with the same sincerity among the poor and unprivileged,'' said Dr. Ruma Chatterjee of the Society for the Visually Handicapped, a nonprofit group that works with MotherTeresa's organization.
Inside her community, there has been no public sign of disappointment over MotherTeresa's doubts about her faith, detailed in a new collection of her writings.
''Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the 'Saint of Calcutta,''' which was to be released Tuesday, recounts MotherTeresa's anguish over the crisis of faith, and the pain she felt over her separation from God. Some writings indicate that, at times, she may have doubted the existence of God.
But Sister Nirmala, the nun who now oversees the order, sees no contradictions in that spiritual struggle.
''It is part of our Mother's spiritual life,'' she said at a Sunday ceremony commemorating the 97th anniversary of her birth. ''It is the path God chose for her deep interior purification and transformation.''
The past decade has seen the Missionaries of Charity expand into new countries and open new clinics. There are now more than 4,800 sisters and more than 750 homes around the world, according to the group.
But MotherTeresa was not beloved by all.
She was criticized for taking donations from Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier and disgraced American financier Charles Keating. Critics opposed her stance against birth-control use in Calcutta's slums.
Still, she remains popular in Calcutta, especially among the poor. Sister Nirmala, a Hindu-born Indian convert to Roman Catholicism, has become a household name like Mother Teresa.
''My way of coping with the challenge is simple just to be myself. I didn't fill Mother's shoe, which is impossible. I followed the footsteps left by the Mother.'' Sister Nirmala.
“Indian woman's prayers to the nun rid her of an incurable tumours, and millions of Catholics have called for her to be eminent to sainthood” late Pope John Paul II.
In the heart of people, Mother is always a saint.