Sister Nirmala

Unconditional love — that’s Sister Nirmala
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 4
Sister Nirmala, the Superior General of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, paid a brief visit to the city to its local unit, Shanti Dan in Sector 23.

The Sister had been invited to attend the CBCI meeting at Jalandhar. On her way back to Kolkata, she stopped over to spend time with The Chandigarh family. Ms Punam Khaira Sidhu, a volunteer in the home, says that she was greatly privileged to see Sister Nirmala at close quarters. Sitting in the little room that serves as a reception area in Shanti Dan, her eyes brimmed over with unconditional love and empathy. She was dressed in the order’s uniform of coarse white, blue bordered, handspun cotton sari. Her small feet bore cracks and were shod in rubber chappals. But the aura surrounding her was bright with peace and purity. When she spoke she radiated love. She said,” Love demands that we give until it hurts not from our abundance but from our wants.” Her message for the people was “ God loves each one of you tenderly. Trust Him totally and seek His will in your love. His will is to love one another as God loves you”.

This frail, tender, woman presides over 676 convents in 129 countries. Sister Nirmala handed out what she called Mother Teresa’s visiting cards, and narrated a story for how it came about. A visiting business man calling on the Nobel Prize winning missionary, apparently handed out his business card while asking for the Mother. She wrote down a small prayer and handed it over to him, saying, “This is my business card”. The card reads, “The fruit of silence is prayer; the fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; the fruit of service is peace.

The mission of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity is to do all they can for the poorest of the poor. They reach out to take the old, the destitute, the disabled and retarded and abandoned children into their homes and look after them, surrounded by the love of the Lord.

Ms Sidhu says that a visit to the convent in Sector 23, “Shanti Dan”, always “rejuvenates me in spirit and mind. I always return full of faith in all that’s good and pure.” The poorest of the poor , the sick , the abandoned have a home here. Babies abandoned at birth are nurtured and cared for. The stench of neglect does not enter here. Instead, there are smiling faces and love pervading every nook of the home from the cabbage patch outside, to the nursery with the babies fragrant with talc. There is a beautiful statue of Mother Mary in the grotto at the entrance.

While she was exceedingly articulate about order and the work being done by the Missionaries of Charity, Sister Nirmala refused to talk about herself. But a browse through news archives yielded the following information. Press releases had stated that Sister Nirmala, was elected almost unanimously as the New Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa was present for the election and blessed Sister Nirmala. Sister Nirmala, 63, was never groomed as a successor to lead the order which has 4,500 nuns in more than 129 countries. Pope John Paul II had advised the nuns, in a letter, that the Missionaries should be led by a woman of deep spirituality. Her selection was unanimous by 132 senior nuns in a closed door vote. It ended an 8-week selection effort.