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Mother Teresa helps those most
desperately in need -- lepers, unwed mothers, discarded infants, the ill,
the insane, the retarded, the dying. Photographer Mary Ellen Mark spent
nearly a month with Mother Teresa, documenting her work. "In this extreme
of suffering," Mark wrote in her travel diary, "pus, blood, vomit, urine,
screams, sad and vacant faces -- the sisters never stop working: they are
gentle and kind. Each time I ask something, the sister tells me, 'It is
God's work, don't you see? You should put down your camera and do some
work.' Quite honestly. I don't think I could."
That Mother Teresa's effort is but a drop of mercy in an ocean of
despair is acceptable to her. In a letter she describes how once,
delirious with fever, she dreamed she went to Saint Peter. "But he would
not let me in, saying, 'There are no slums in heaven.' In anger I said,
'Very well, I will fill heaven with slum people, then you will be forced
to let me in.' Poor Saint Peter! Since then the Sisters and Brothers don't
give him rest -- because our people have reserved their places in heaven
long ago by their suffering."
CONTINUE...
A beggar
sleeps at the mission door in
Calcutta. |
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