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MOTHER
TERESA’S COMPANION PASSES AWAY |
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AHMEDABAD, Gujarat:
Catholic nun Sister Lawrentia, whose parents offered a
part of their house to the ‘Saint of the Gutters’ when
she began her service to the poor, passed away here
March 18. She was 75.
“Sister Lawrentia was a happy and pleasant person. I
have met her only a few times. But whenever I met her,
she had a welcoming smile on her face,” said Archbishop
Stanislaus Fernandes SJ, while leading her funeral Mass
at the Holy Family Church here March 20.
The archbishop recalled that Lawrentia came from a very
religious family and that her parents were generous in
offering a part of their house to Mother Teresa.
Father Cedric Prakash SJ, a close friend of Mother
Teresa and her MC Sisters in Gujarat, paid tributes to
Lawrentia in his homily. Prakash described her as a
cheerful person who mirrored the goodness of God. He
also officiated at the burial service in Biladi Bagh
cemetery in the city.
The superior of the MC community at Odhav, Sister Albana,
told SAR News that Lawrentia had died of a heart attack.
Lawrentia was born Magdalene Gomes in Kolkata, September
29, 1934. After celebrating her golden jubilee as an MC
nun October 17, 2005 at Odhav, Sister Lawrentia came to
the Catholic Information Service Society for releasing
Father Varghese Paul’s book in Gujarati entitled Tamaru
Hruday Gashe (Your Heart will Sing) in the presence of a
select gathering, November 10, 2005.
On the occasion, SAR News interviewed Lawrentia who
spoke about her association with Mother Teresa even
before she started the Congregation of Missionaries of
Charity. “My father offered her the 3rd floor of our
house without taking any rent for five years,” Lawrentia
recalled.
“I was thinking of joining some religious congregation.
Then one day, at the age of 18, I went up to the 3rd
floor of my house to see what Mother Teresa was doing.
Mother Teresa asked me, ‘What are you going to do in
life?’ I told her I was thinking of joining a religious
congregation,” Lawrentia reminisced.
“Join me in my congregation,” Mother invited me casually
and I joined her on October 7, 1952,” Lawrentia said.
Lawrentia made her first profession on October 16, 1955,
and her final profession on October 17, 1961, in Kolkata.
She was sent to the missions in Kolkata, Bihar, Delhi,
Agra, Raigarh, Nalgonda, Orissa, Bangalore, Madras,
Nanpura-Surat, Odhav in Gujarat and Kota in Rajasthan.
She was often appointed superior of the MC Sisters’
community and institutions.
“She was like a mother not only to us, the sisters, but
also to the inmates of our houses who are sick old or
otherwise disabled,” said an MC Sister.
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This page
is updated on April 1, 2009 |
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PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY
10 YEARS CELEBRATION
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