Organizata “Care for Albania/ Kujdesu për Shqipërinë” në Chicago, SHBA, organizoi këto ditë një takim, që i kushtohej shenjtes shqiptare Nënë Tereza.
Në Mayslake Peabody Estate, në Oakbrook, në sallën e madhe, u mblodhën shumë shqiptaro-amerikanë, të ardhur nga të gjitha trojet shqiptare, nga diaspora e re dhe e vjetër, të rinj, fëmijë dhe të moshuar, të besimeve të ndryshme dhe të racave të ndryshme, amerikanë, ashtu siç përbashkonte Nënë Tereza.
Presidentja e “Care for Albania/ Kujdesu për Shqipërinë”, Dr. Sonila Sejdaras, në fillim tha se në punën e tyre frymëzoheshin nga Nënë Tereza dhe donin të ecnin në gjurmët e saj dhe më pas vazhdoi për misionin e Nënë Terezës në Chicago, ku ajo vinte…
Eda Zhiti foli për shejtërimin e Nënë Terezës, kishte qenë në Vatikan në ditën e kanonizimit dhe është autore e një libri të kësaj ngjarje të madhe, të botuar në Itali.
Shkrimtari Visar Zhiti në fjalën e tij shtjelloi lidhjet e Nënë Terezës me shqiptarët dhe marrëdhëniet dramatike me Shqipërinë.
Kumtesat u mbajtën në gjuhën angleze dhe shqip.
Takimin e drejtoi Taip Bes Hiri, ai tha se ishte andej nga vinte dhe Nënë Tereza, ndjehej bashkëqytetar i lumtur i saj.
Dy vogëlushe, Valentina Gonxhe-Tereza Casacchia dhe Christine Prifti ishin të veshura si Nënë Tereza të vogla, njëra me kostumin popullor si në fëmininë e Nënë Terezës, kurse tjetra me të bardha si motër misionare dhe recituan vargje dhe thënie të sajat.
Pianisti i ri, Leart Shabani, luajti në piano himnin “Porsi fleta e Ejllit t’Zotit” me muzikë të Lec Kurtit dhe fjalët të At’ Gjergj Fishtës dhe Ave Marian e Preludit nga Johann Sebastian Bach.
Ishte dita Kur Nënë Tereza ishte shpallur “Qytetare Nderi”, që vetëm 7 veta e kanë këtë titull në të gjithë historinë e Shteteve të Bashkuara të Amerikës, ndërsa në Shqipëri, në Katedralen e Shkrodrës lumturoheshin me Dekret të Papa Françeskut edhe dy martirë të tjerë shqiptarë, At Luigji Paliq dhe Dom Gjon Gazulli.
Veprimtaria “Nënë Tereza – Ikona Globale e dhembshurisë dhe e shërbimit”, e organizuar nga “Care for Albania/ Kujdesu për Shqipërinë”, la mbresa të fuqishme në të pranishmit, pati jehonë ndër shqiptarë dhe amerikanë dhe dha mesazhe paqeje dhe përkushtimi, shpalosi vlera me kulturë dhe art të shqiptarëve në Chicago.

DITA E SHENJTËRIMIT TË NËNË TEREZËS
– Fjala në anglisht nga Eda Zhiti –

MOTHER TERESA CANONIZATION DAY.

We were in the Vatican, in the most beautiful square of the Catholic world, in Saint Peter’s, when Mother Teresa was to be canonized.
I cannot say how blessed we were to be there, and in full disclosure, we were very much front and back, working on behalf of Albania there, as   my husband worked as the head of the Albanian Embassy in the Holy See at that time.

There was so much light and emotion that Sunday, September 4, 2016. More than 120,000 pilgrims, coming from all continents, waving the flags of the Vatican, but also of Albania, Kosova, India, Europe and America
The crowd stretched all the way to the Tiber River bridges and no one could see where the end was. It looked like a sea of people.
During the Canonization mass for Blessed Mother Teresa, Cardinal Amato – the Prefect of the Congregation for the causes of saints presented a biography of the Church newest Saint in the presence of Pope Francis. He said:
“This humble nun, to whom countless number of people turn, affectionately calling her “Mother Teresa”, is the Blessed Soul we are presenting to your Holiness today so…, the whole world may contemplate her, ask her intercession, and imitate her in charitable works. Throughout her life, following the example of Christ the Good Samaritan, she was always close to anyone she encountered who was in need, sharing in the suffering of those who live on the extreme outskirts of society and witnessing to God’s boundless love for His people. (Vatican Radio-Catholic news).
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, to a family of Albanian origin. As an adolescent she became ever more active in her parish while her vocation to give herself totally to the Lord grew. Leaving her family, she was received as a Postulant in the convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Sisters of Loreto, near Dublin.
Sent to Darjeeling, in India, at the end of her novitiate, she made her final profession and took the name of Teresa. She served as a teacher and spent 17 years at Saint Mary’s Bengali Medium School, near Calcutta.
While travelling by train from Calcutta to Darjeeling, she received what she defined as “the call within the call”: an intuition to begin a religious institute that would “satisfy the infinite thirst of Jesus on the Cross for love and for souls by working for the salvation and the sanctification of the poorest of the poor”.

She opened houses of mercy first in India where not only the poverty was extreme, but so was also the thirst for God, to continue in Latin America, in Europe.
Then it was the turn of the Middle East: At Amari, at Gaza, then to Yemen where there had been no Catholics for many centuries. The government accepted Mother Teresa’s conditions and she said: “After six centuries Christ has returned among these people”. In Asia, In North America, In central America and Africa.
Mother Teresa said about herself and about the Missionaries of Charity: “I know that we are merely a drop in the ocean of human misery and suffering, but if it were not for this drop, human misery and suffering would be even greater…”
Mother Teresa always sought to involve many people doing something good for God.
She founded various branches of her Congregation:
⦁ The Missionaries of Charity Sisters;
⦁ The Missionaries of Charity Brothers
⦁ The International Association Co-workers of Mother Teresa, approved and blessed in 1969 by Pope Paul VI.
⦁ The Missionaries of Charity Sisters – contemplative branch
⦁ The Missionaries of Charity Brothers – contemplative branch
⦁ The Missionaries of Charity Fathers…

Mother Teresa was canonized nine years after her death
According to the Vatican law, the first miracle attributed to a candidate for sainthood means beatification can be conferred. Recognition of her first miracle resulted in Mother Teresa’s beatification in 2003. Monika Besra’s healing, from an incurable stomach tumor happened after a sister placed a medal that had been touched to Mother Teresa’s body on Monica’s stomach.

We attended as pilgrims the Beatification mass too. We also had with us the prayers of Mother Teresa, which my husband published for the first time in Albania. And a portrait of Mother Teresa, which our son had drawn when he was three and a half years old, with several crosses in a background of different colors, which the Vatican newspaper “Osservatore Romano” would publish, commenting that “those crosses represent the human races united by Mother Teresa, and the drawing of this child is stronger than the treaties of statesmen”.
Let’s continue with her canonization. A second miracle followed so canonization and entry into sainthood took place.
Mother Teresa’s second miracle was curing a man who had brain abscesses
In 2008, Brazilian Marcilio Haddad Andrino was close to death. An infection had left his brain with abscesses and accumulating fluids, and his worsening condition made him fall into a coma. His wife, Fernanda, prayed to Mother Teresa for help, she put Mother Teresa relic on Marcilio’s head, where he had the abscesses.
While Andrino was taken into surgery room, he woke up and stated, “What I am doing here?” His wife’s prayers were answered as Andrino made a fast and complete recovery.
As before, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and a medical committee examined the case. No medical explanation was discovered for how Andrino had been cured. In 2015, his recovery was deemed to be Mother Teresa’s second miracle.

This is what the Holy Father said that day:
“Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded. She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that “the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”. She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime – the crimes! – of poverty they created. For Mother Teresa, mercy was the “salt” which gave flavor to her work, it was the “light” which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering. Her mission to the urban and existential peripheries remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest of the poor. Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: may she be your model of holiness!”

I wanted to collect the emotions and sentiments of everyone who was there, but that would have been impossible. Then I thought: What about the women? There were thousands of them too. That was also impossible. I suddenly had the idea to make an anthology with the impressions of the women of the Diplomatic Corps only, of the women ambassadors and the wives of male ambassadors. I thought taking even a sentence from each one would be a great testimony about that great day.
I felt it was my duty as a Catholic, also as a compatriot of Mother Teresa. And I started writing to all of them. And they were kind enough to answer me.
Thus, a book was created.
The women who brought their impressions and reflections about Mother Teresa included the wife of the Ambassador of Italy to the Holy See and the wives of other ambassadors from Japan, Austria, Poland, France, Slovenia, etc… the
Ambassador of the United Kingdom, Bosnia, the European Union, from African countries.
I also included thoughts and reflections of two Albanian nuns, Elena and Majlinda, as they are truly spiritual ambassadors of Saint Mother Teresa.
The women authors brought a variety of memories, prayers in the presence of and with Saint Mother Teresa, their meetings with her; one of them even shared about a not so pleasant moment , when she had been arrested, in  a former socialist country; another recalled what the Cardinal of her country had told her when he had come with Mother Teresa to Albania, even sharing how they had met the widow of dictator Hoxha, and how Mother Teresa had asked her for a house for her sisters of charity.
“The one who pays the most will get it,” the widow of the dictator had said, implying that this was the nature of your system, in a capitalist world.

And Mother Teresa replied: “Don’t you understand that I want to give you the chance to show kindness?”
Albania has paid the highest price of all. But blessed be the land that also gave the world Mother Teresa, who not only is an example of how to not let go the chance to show kindness, but it brings goodness and spreads it.

***

On the day of her canonization “The voice of Pope Francis seemed to spread with the white wings of doves and stopped in the nest of every heart”, – that was a sentiment I entered in my book:
My book was published in Italian by “Libreria Editrice Vaticana” under the title “Day of Saint Mother Teresa” and I shared few things from the book here.
Mother Teresa is the most famous woman on the planet thanks to the divine love she still spreads, but how does she unite the world? With her prayers. With the mission she fulfilled.
Faith in action – would become Mother Teresa’s mission and she would later be called the greatest investor of smiles.
I also like to call this day “A holy day of Mother Teresa” All days, in fact, are like this: they carry the light of her soul, that spirit.
I close by praying every day with love:
May Saint Mother Teresa be our model of holiness.
Thank you!