Mother Teresa

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born in Albania in 1910.  She became a Catholic Nun and founded a religious order to minister to “the poorest of the poor”, the Missionaries of Charity.

Mother Teresa, as she became known as a nun, tirelessly tended to the needs of lepers, AIDs victims, and the poorest in a poor country.  Her example led her to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. 

Mother Teresa died in 1997.  She was canonized (proclaimed a saint) by the Roman Catholic Church in 2016.

Her life serves as a testament to tolerance and sacrifice for the common good. 

“There is only one God, and He is God to all; therefore, it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God.  I have always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic.  We believe our work should be an example to the people.”[1]

In some respects, the quote should not be surprising.  After all, Mother Teresa made it her life’s work to alleviate the suffering of anyone, regardless of race, sex, religion or color.  Each was, as she was, a child of God, and thus deserving of assistance.  She lived the parable of the Good Samaritan.[2]

But on another level, Mother Teresa was a Christian – a Roman Catholic – and being canonized, recognized as one worthy of emulation. 

If this holy person, leader of her religious sect and recognized as a saint, can advocate for equal treatment of all in need, no matter their religion, then we can and should emulate her.

Our work, after all, should be an example to the people. 

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[1] Mother Teresa, quoted in the preface to One Mountain, Many Peaks, Dr. Patrick Swift (Double Eagle Press 2007).

[2] Luke 10:25-37.

Elie Wiesel Nobel Lecture

In 1986, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  The following are excerpts from his Nobel lecture.  The entire speech is worth a read – I recommend it.[1]

After the war we reassured ourselves that it would be enough to relate a single night in Treblinka, to tell of the cruelty, the senselessness of murder, and the outrage born of indifference: it would be enough to find the right word and the propitious moment to say it, to shake humanity out of its indifference and keep the torturer from torturing ever again. We thought it would be enough to read the world a poem written by a child in the Theresienstadt ghetto to ensure that no child anywhere would ever again have to endure hunger or fear. It would be enough to describe a death-camp "Selection", to prevent the human right to dignity from ever being violated again.

We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is "different" - whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem - anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. A naive undertaking? Of course. But not without a certain logic.

We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language; language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic.

And then too, the people around us refused to listen; and even those who listened refused to believe; and even those who believed could not comprehend. Of course, they could not. Nobody could. The experience of the camps defies comprehension.

Have we failed? I often think we have.

*  *  *  *  *

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world. We may be powerless to open all the jails and free all the prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers. None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims…. Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent. Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.

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[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-lecture.html

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in … Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Liberated from Buchenwald in 1945 by advancing Allied troops, he was taken to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne and worked as a journalist.

In 1958, he published his first book,… a memoir of his experiences in the concentration camps. …  In his many lectures, Wiesel has concerned himself with the situation of the Jews and other groups who have suffered persecution and death because of their religion, race or national origin. ….[1]

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.  The Committee stated “Wiesel is a messenger to mankind; his message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity. …. His message is based on his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps. ….”[2]

Wiesel died in 2016.

Here are some thought-provoking quotes from the Peace Prize winner:

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.  … The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.  And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.  Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead.[3]

Reminds me of that passage in Revelations about being lukewarm…[4]

No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.[5]

Well, that’s been a theme of this blog all year….

The greatest commandment to me in the Bible is not the Ten Commandments. … My commandment is ‘Thou shall not stand idly by.’ Which means, when you witness an injustice: Don’t stand idly by. When you hear of a person or a group being persecuted: Do not stand idly by. When there is something wrong with the community around you or far away: Do not stand idly by. You must intervene. You must interfere. And that is actually the motto of human rights.

And there is the challenge:  To have the moral courage to act on your convictions. 

I would hope, with the help of God, I could. 

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[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html

[2] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel

[3] US News & World Report, Oct 27, 1986.  Cited in Wikiquote, supra.

[4] Revelations 3:16

[5] Parade Magazine, May 24, 1992.  Cited in Wikiquote, supra