“Setting up accommodation for the dying, and in a house that was formerly for pilgrims to the Kali Temple in Calcutta, was anything but easy and straightforward. Radical Hindu groups feared a Christian missionary campaign and accused the Sisters of proselytizing and of recruiting from among the Hindu faithful. There were violent protests when the Calcutta authorities granted Mother Teresa the use of these premises.
At the time a distinguished Hindu leader came from Delhi to enlist the local youth in driving Mother Teresa and her Sisters out of the precincts of the Kali Temple. Armed with cudgels and stones, the mob approached, with the Hindu leader in the forefront. When Mother Teresa heard what was happening, she stood in front of the door and then walked toward the mob. She greeted the leader without any sign of fear and invited him to come in and see what they were doing.
He went in with her by himself. After a while he came out again. The youths crowded around and asked him whether they could now begin to drive out the Sisters. He replied, “Yes you can, but only when your sisters and your mothers do what those Sisters are doing in there.”
Later, when one of the many priests at the Kali temple came down with tuberculosis, the Sisters took him in and cared for him with the same kindness and cordiality as all the other sick people. Every day one of his brother priests came to visit him. Thus the Hindu priests at the nearby Kali Temple slowly became a circle of friends and supporters of Nirmal Hriday.
Mother Teresa had a deep respect for all human beings regarding their beliefs and their religions. She never tried to force or impose the Catholic Faith on anyone. Moreover, I think that what she left us was not so much a doctrine as its fruit: Love in action—a heart full of love and hands that put that love into practice.
It was especially moving to see how she touched the seriously ill and dying, how she was not afraid to caress them—as a mother fondles her child’s head and holds its hand. How often she changed human hearts and human lives through her touch! I don’t know whether any of Mother Teresa’s Hindu or Muslim coworkers ever changed their religion, but I am certain that there are thousands of human beings who changed their lives after an encounter with Mother Teresa. ~ Fr. Leo Maasburg, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, A Personal Portrait (Ignatius Press-Augustine Institute, Fort Collins, CO 80522,) 2011), 155-56
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