Once, on learning that a woman and her two children had not eaten for two days, Mother took them some food. On receiving the bowl, the woman left the room and returned shortly with the bowl half empty. Smiling she explained, "Mother, my neighbour with her children is in a worse plight and I know that nobody has brought them food." This, according to Mother, was one of the most touching experiences of her life. If Mother is considered a saint today, it is because she met many a little saint along the way.

Mother had often heard the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, "It is in giving that we receive, in pardoning that we are pardoned and in dying that we are born to eternal life." The differencebetween this feeble saint and the millions who have heard the words of St Francis or Jesus Christ, Lord Krishna or Prophet Mohammed is that she translated into action what she heard and believed in. For her, faith and religion was not a matter of pious platitudes.

If she opposed abortion, it was not because she was blind to the misery of the teeming millions but the belief that life was a gift from God and nobody had a right to destroy it. She was convinced that to kill a defenseless baby in the womb was not a solution to the problems of this world, but to replenish it with love and more love.

As a Catholic, Mother had the privilege of knowing and loving Jesus. He was her obsession. Through the hungry she fed Him; in the leprosy patients she dressed His wounds; she sheltered Him in destitutes and prostitutes; consoled Him in AIDS victims. In her relationship with Jesus she learnt how He interacted with people of all classes and ethnic origins. In His divinity He displayed a distinct humanity, one whichembraced everyone who was in need of compassion. This was the cue for Mother and so every human person, regardless of caste, creed or colour was welcomed into the temples of the Missionaries of Charity. Hence she could confidently claim, "We have absolutely no difficulty having to work with many faiths. We treat all people as children of God. They are our brothers and sisters."

Such a faith in no way relativised her own. Her emphasis on Jesus and Mary was the fruit of her faith and she firmly held, "I love all religions but I am in love with my own. If people become better Hindus, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there. They come closer to God..." She is known to have gone with her sisters and cleaned a mosque in war-torn Beirut. When religion returned to her motherland, Albania, at the end of the communist regime, she again opened a mosque there. Starting a Home at Shivala Ghats on the bank of the Ganges was no less sacred to her. So when a Hindu or a Muslim diedthere, the last rites were performed according to their own religion.

Mother often started her speech by saying, "A family that prays together stays together." She was not advocating that this prayer should be addressed to Jesus or that only Christians could pray. In fact, a few days before her samadhi she wrote, "Our deep, deep gratitude to God, for the gift of these 50 years of Independence must be our prayer; it must be our strong resolution that we, the people of India, will be one heart full of love in the Heart of God. Let us be a holy nation. Let us together make our country something beautiful for God".