ITSH Instituti i Trashëgimisë Shpirtërore e Kulturore të Shqiptarëve – Shkup
According to Mother Teresa, human nature needs the spiritual side more than the material, and man without the spiritual component is a skeleton that moves at the command of those who control human wills.
By Prof. dr. Skender ASANI
From August 26 to September 5, we made a regional journey with the figure of Mother Teresa, figuratively called “The Light of Gonxhe“, wanting to prove with this action that we belong to the vision of this woman with a big heart and rich soul From Skopje, where Gonxhe Bojaxhiu-Mother Teresa was born, to Tirana, where the remains of her mother and sister rest, this joint journey was not just a routine movement but to mark some of the important stations of life and work of her, but above all it was the intention to integrate into our practices of thought and action the spirit and cause of sacrifice for the other that she represented throughout her life.
The first and most important step for these practices to be part of our social and humane philosophy was the establishment of the Department for the study of the spiritual heritage of Gonxhe Bojaxhiu – Mother Teresa within the Institute of Spiritual and Cultural Heritage of the Albanians in Skopje, with that we set a standard of evaluation for a special figure, such as Mother Teresa. Without this standard, we cannot claim that we are doing enough for this great figure, because only by raising the respect and devotion to her to the institutional level, we can say that we have repaid a part of the moral debt we owe to her. As a result, this respect and dedication, over time, from year to year, has come to take shape and physiognomy, either in the form of a manifestation that I have been holding for four years now, or in the form of publications and publications of different and special, including the specialized magazine, with the symbolic name “Drita e Gonxha”, a platform that will serve as a database of valuable ideas and data of various authors on the life and work of Mother Teresa.
The echo of an event can never be heard if the power of that event is limited to narrow swathes of scope. Knowing this law of physics, we took care to give all our activities related to Mother Teresa a wider regional and comprehensive impact, including our spiritual-Catholic centers of Kosovo and Albania as well as a large number of participants from the field of public life, starting from the highest state personalities, foreign diplomats, to important figures of culture and knowledge in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and beyond.
Peace, love, sacrifice for the other – this was the triangle within which the entire ethical and humane cause of Mother Teresa moved. She was convinced that without peace, without love and without sacrifice for the other, there can be no earthly harmony and divine rest. To live with the burden that no one puts on your back, except your conscience to be at the service of others, is the most sublime act of human commitment and sacrifice that Mother Teresa with full awareness turned into axioms of thinking and acting.
Peace has a very high price, but for peace, according to Mother Teresa, we must fight with love, not with weapons. Peaceful battlefields are much more significant than military battlefields, because only peace is a source of earthly prosperity, while wars and conflicts significantly endanger the development and progress of humanity. The philosophy and theology of Mother Teresa was based on these ethical and humane postulates, who used her authority to increase human consciousness, but also in meetings with different citizens, for the prevention of conflicts, as the predispositions to create the conditions for a peaceful and happy world.
Although she was a great figure with planetary influence, Mother Teresa did not have any strict protocol in her activity, because everything she did for the sick, the poor and the lonely, she did not tolerate protocol, she did not tolerate bureaucracy. This way of acting was the opposite of the official practices, because her warm hand and smile were the magical mechanisms that affected the spiritual well-being of the people much more than any other kind of help that was done with pomposity by the official authorities. With this she proved that human nature needs the spiritual side more than the material one and man without the spiritual component is a skeleton that moves at the command of those who control human wills. “Speak softly to people! Show kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your smile, always have a cheerful smile! Give not only care, but also heart!”, she said. Therefore, Mother Teresa committed herself that man does not resemble a skeleton stripped of human feeling, because when man lacks humanity he turns into a tool that mechanically performs improper actions. Only humanity, according to Mother Teresa, makes an individual great, not power. Therefore, when she met high representatives, she treated them without the glamor and pomp necessary for such meetings, while the high representatives, when they met her, somehow submitted to the fame she had. The former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, after meeting her said: “To meet Mother Teresa means to experience the feeling of inferiority and that of the great power of kindness and the power of love.” This is also due to the fact that Mother Teresa never accepted fame as a notion that would make her burdensome, because she often said that everything she did was done for the sake of God’s love. “I am a small pencil in the hands of God. He uses me to write what he wants…”, she said.
We are lucky, but also responsible, to live in the age of Mother Teresa, because it is not enough to mention her name on various occasions related to important dates of her life and work, but also to raise the level of care and dedication to her, making this level as dignified and as complete as possible from an institutional point of view, an effort that has now become part of our management philosophy as ISCHA and as a Department for the study of the spiritual heritage of Gonxhe Bojaxhiu – Mother Teresa.
Skopje, 05. 09. 2024
