Kolkata, Oct 19: Though there is controversy over the miracle claimed on her behalf, Mother Teresa or the 'angel of mercy', as she is fondly remembered, is recognised as a 'miracle of God' for the umpteen number of orphans, the lepers and the dying, shunned by all on the streets of the city of joy. "Miracle happened the day god sent her for us. Otherwise we would have been nowhere in this big, chaotic world," said Lydia Josephine, a young woman, brought up at the Sishu Bhavan of the missionaries of charity.

Born to a Bengali father and Tibetan mother in Darjeeling, she lost her mother just after her birth and was deserted soon after by the family before the sisters brought her to the Sishu Bhavan, a home for the orphan infants.

Spending about 30 years at the home, Josephine, now based in Mumbai, cannot think of a happy married life and wants to join the ranks of the MOC, like the 4,000 and more nuns who followed the footsteps the Albanian woman, who made the city her home for half a century.
To the likes of Josephine or the 23-year-old Marieatta Mendis of Delhi as also the 300 odd children, who were sleeping at the Sishu Bhavan while their mother was being beatified in Vatican, "she was a miracle of God. Otherwise, how could a woman get the courage to take up the burden of thousands of suffering human beings all on her own?"

Bureau Report