New Haven Register's article about Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa to be honored at K of C event

By Ed Stannard, Register Metro Editor
estannard@newhavenregister.com

NEW HAVEN — The largest Roman Catholic fraternity will honor one of the faith’s most celebrated modern women Thursday.

Mother Teresa would have been 100 Thursday, and the Knights of Columbus will celebrate her birthday with a cake and a party that includes the unveiling of a postage stamp that will be issued in her honor next month.

“It’s a joyful occasion,” said Peter Sonski, spokesman for the Knights. “Mother Teresa is a person that transcends a lot of boundaries. ... She’s thought of as an individual that had a great ability to focus on what is most important: ... the poorest of the poor.”

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on Aug. 26, 1910, and became best known for her work among the poor in Calcutta, India, where she founded the Missionaries of Charity. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and died in 1997.

Her life has been the subject of an exhibit at the Knights of Columbus Museum, 1 State St., which runs until Oct. 4.

“It also has a unique facet in that Mother Teresa has had a bit of a relationship with the Knights of Columbus,” Sonski said.

She visited the Knights’ headquarters in 1988, seeking help with her order’s printing needs, and spoke to the staff. The K of C gave her the Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope) award in 1992. Mother Teresa was beatified by Pope John Paul II and many are hoping she will achieve sainthood.

The speaker at Thursday’s affair will be Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle of New Milford, author of “Mother Teresa and Me: Ten Years of Friendship.”

“She had so many important profound messages to the world, actually, and one could be summed up in the words ‘I thirst,’” Cooper O’Boyle said. “That was to symbolize Jesus’ thirst for our love and our thirst for Jesus’ love.”

She said she will speak on another of Mother Teresa’s themes: “the poor that surround us in our affluent country here that are starving for love.” We are “all called to be saints,” Cooper O’Boyle said.

The 44-cent U.S. postage stamp for Mother Teresa will be issued Sept. 5, and there will be a special cancellation ceremony at the museum Sept. 8, Sonski said.

The festivities will begin about 11:45 a.m. at the museum, complete with a cake with 100 candles.

Mother Teresa’s centenary became the subject of some controversy when the management of the Empire State Building rejected a request to light the top of the skyscraper in her order’s blue and white. Instead, it will be lit red, white and blue for the 90th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote.


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