MOTHER TERESA BRINGS MESSAGE OF LOVE

Author: By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff and Art Kramer, Contributing Reporter

Date: Thursday, June 15, 1995
Page: 1
Section: METRO

During a stirring two-hour Mass at St. Lawrence, Martyr Church, the frail, 84-year-old nun told nearly 1,000 worshipers gathered inside the church -- and about another 1,000 who stood outside in the rain or in the school auditorium -- that "One has to be able to love to be loved."

Speaking without notes in a barely audible voice that was broadcast over loudspeakers to those outside the church, Mother Teresa asked listeners to pray for her and her sisters' work with lepers and people with AIDS, here and abroad.

She also talked about her order's fight against abortion, which she called ''the greatest evil of today."

"Thousands and millions of children are being killed by their own mothers," she said. "The child that has been created to love and to be loved, for greater things. We have been able to give in adoption over 3,500 children already, and they have been such a beautiful gift of God to their
families, who could not have naturally a child of their own."

Mother Teresa was in New Bedford to visit a convent of her order, Missionaries of Charity. Today, she is scheduled to visit another convent in Dorchester and attend a Mass in Newton.

In New Bedford, Mother Teresa was greeted with applause as she was escorted into the church by a priest, with a contingent from the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's charitable organization, serving as an honor guard.

After the Mass, she went into the convent and emerged unexpectedly about two hours later, much to the delight of the 500 or so people who were keeping vigil outside.

As she stood on the sidewalk, people slowly filed by her, and she shook hands, patted some on the head, and offered her blessing.

"She's going to be a saint so I just wanted to meet her," said Caitie Humphrey, 8, of Dartmouth.

Sixty-five-year-old Charles Berry of New Bedford was similarly excited. ''We didn't even think we could get close," he said.

In her talk, Mother Teresa told of recent work she has begun in Calcutta, bailing out young women she said were forced into prostitution, arrested and jailed. Her nuns also have started ministering to homeless older people who have been jailed, she said.

She spoke of a dream she had that she had died and went to heaven. St. Peter told her in her dream, "Go back, there are no slums in heaven."

She paid tribute to her nuns in the New Bedford convent, saying that they, like others around the world, worked with battered women, neglected children, the poor and the ill.

She said the order recently has opened 50 convents in the former Soviet Union.

She urged Fall River Bishop Sean O'Malley, who celebrated the solemn Mass, to "send me more vocations."

In deference to the large Portuguese population in New Bedford, a New Testament passage at the Mass was read in Portuguese. A priest interpreted the entire service in sign language for the hearing impaired.

Some 120 priests served as concelebrants of the Mass -- most of them seated in the congregation with a number of other religious and nuns of Mother Teresa's order.

In his homily, Bishop O'Malley paid tribute to Mother Teresa and her nuns and told how many of them have sacrificed their lives for the poor and desperately ill around the world.

"You are a signpost on the pathway to God. We love you, Mother Teresa," the bishop said.

After the Mass, Mother Teresa went to the second-floor window of the convent across the street from the church and waved to the crowd outside. She held up her rosary for them to see and many held their rosaries up in return. She distributed 5,000 medals showing the Virgin Mary, given by an anonymous donor, which were prized treasures among the crowd.

People came from all over New England and beyond to see the famed nun. One local woman, 92-year-old Florence Brower, took a taxi to the church from her home on Rockdale Avenue, holding her cashed pension check in her hand to give to Mother Teresa's missions. Brower waited in line for hours in hopes of getting a seat in the church, and finally made it inside the door.

"I want to help Mother Teresa to see to the poor," she said.

After the Mass, Mother Teresa met with a group of people seated in a front pew. One of them was 13-year-old Gabriella Pardow of Mexico City, now living in New Bedford. Gabriella has neither legs nor arms, and Mother Teresa gently touched her face when she went to her wheelchair. Later Gabriella said Mother Teresa said to her: "God bless you. I love you. Offer all for Jesus."

Outside the church, little kindnesses between strangers were in evidence everywhere in the hours before her appearance.

A New Bedford police officer anonymously paid for lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken for two missionaries and two young boys visiting from Ohio.

"Oh, what a nice surprise," exclaimed Lauri Elagozlu, 34, a Hutterian Brethren Missionary from Ohio, when the cashier told her of the officer's kindness. She said Mother Teresa's order had cared for one of the boys with her when he was an infant in Brooklyn, so the missionaries brought the boys to ''thank the people who got him started."

It was an especially sentimental occasion for retired Rev. Justin Quinn of Fall River, who served at St. Lawrence for 15 years. "I feel overwhelming awe," he said. "I hope this will reawaken the consciousness of our role as God's children in the world."

New Bedford firefighter Rick Teixeira, 53, left the bedside of his hospitalized wife for a spot in the honor guard.

"I would have stayed with her, but my wife said this is a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity. She said, 'When she walks by, just reach out and touch her if you can,' " Teixeira said.

One man was taken into protective custody outside of the Missionaries convent; police said he was intoxicated, but would not be charged. There were no other reported incidents, police said.

All 292 of the city's police, and most of the its fire and rescue personnel, were mobilized for the event. They held the crowd at bay until just after 3 p.m., when police opened the barricades and the crowd surged toward the convent.

Among the first to rush forward was Ray O'Brien, 42, a Medford truck mechanic. "I've always felt a mysterious connection with her," O'Brien said, ''since I adopted two children . . . from Calcutta, India.

"I feel like I ought to thank her, because it is the best thing I ever did in the world."

Mother Teresa caused a stir everywhere she appeared. Even though city officials tried to keep the time and location of her arrival secret, when she landed in a private jet at New Bedford Airport, thousands of people lined the route from the airport to the church, waving and calling her name.

New Bedford Mayor Rosemary Tierney said Mother Teresa waved back. "She is the youngest 84-year-old I've ever met," Tierney said.

1910: Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Albania.

1928: Joins the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish order with a mission in India.

1929: Leaves Loreto Abbey in Dublin for Calcutta. Begins nearly twenty years of service as a teacher at Loreto school for girls.

1937: Takes her final vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

1946: On a train to Darjeeling, says she received a "call within a call" to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.

1948: Receives permission from the archbishop of Calcutta to work outside the convent.

1950: Founds the Missionaries of Charity.

1954: Establishes a home for the dying in Calcutta for those abandoned and left to die on the street.

1964: Starts a leper colony in West Bengal.

1975: Publishes a book, "Gift from God."

1979: Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

1985: Opens the first church-sponsored hospice for patients with AIDS in New York City.

1985: Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

SOURCE: "International Who's Who"; "Nobel Prize Winners"; "Continuum Dictionary of Women's Biography"

7:00 a.m. Leave New Bedford by helicopter for Boston

7:30 a.m. Arrive at Franklin Field and drive to convent of the

Missionaries of Charity in Dorchester

7:45 a.m. Arrive at the convent

8:30 a.m. Leave the convent for Franklin Field

8:45 a.m. Leave Franklin Field by helicopter for St. John's

Seminary in Brighton

9:00 a.m. Arrive at the seminary grounds and drive to Our Lady

Help of Christians in Newton

9:30 a.m. Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians

11:45 a.m. Drive to St. John's Seminary

12:00 noon Leave by helicopter from seminary for New Bedford

12:30 p.m. Arrive New Bedford Airport

SOURCE: Archdiocese of Boston

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