The world went to sleep on August 5, 1997, with the news of the passing on of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, the humble East European nun who from near total obscurity in 1950 when she founded the Missionaries of Charity, rose to become one of the most celebrated religious personages, not only in the twentieth century, but in the entire human history. She died of heart attack at the age of 87.  Mother Theresa died on the eve of the burial in London of Lady Diana, the 36 year old Princess of Wales who of late had become fond of the old woman. She travelled to India to see Mother Theresa in June 1997. Princess Diana touched the hearts of millions in the world not only with her glamour but also with her passion for charity and commitment to human dignity and global peace.

The death of Mother Theresa came barely one month after we laid to rest in Lagos, the remains of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the garrulous king of Afrobeat music, who in spite of what many saw as his pronounced lack of moral scruples and excessive immodesty, nevertheless touched the hearts of many young people in the continent of Africa and beyond, by his consistent aversion for dictatorship and social injustice, and his commitment to freedom from political, social and economic subjugation.

Very few people know that Mother Theresa's real name was Sister Agnes Bojaxhui. The real name hardly interested anyone. Instead the frail old woman was identified by the fruits of her passion. She was known as "mother" for she demonstrated to the world that participating in the life of God is motherhood. She was known as "the saint of the gutters," for she brought the love of God to those who dwelt in the gutters of Calcutta and elsewhere. She was known as "the angel of mercy," for she translated the mercy and compassion of God into concrete terms for suffering humanity. She was known as the "the apostle of love and peace," for her life was a powerful testimony to genuine love and a veritable witness to lasting peace. So rich and abundant were the fruits of her Christian discipleship that Malcom Muggeridge, the late British Broadcaster summed up the entire phenomenon of Mother Theresa as "Something Beautiful For God."

Mother Theresa of Calcutta took Christ seriously in the twentieth century, a century wherein humanity has been both the perpetrator and victim of excessive rationalism and exaggerated materialism; a century wherein humanity has been both the perpetrator and victim of crass individualism and acute selfishness that are expressed in the idolatry of self. Mother Theresa lived in the century when the revolutionary ideals of Jesus Christ that are capable of transforming the world from a less human to a more human society, have become for many (even among those who profess Christianity) a mere intellectual abstraction. Mother Theresa lived in the twentieth century when Christ's radical notion of sacrificial love, poverty and humility are treated by many as metaphors. She lived in an age when love for many has become a "cash and carry" affair; when people love only as long as it soothes, and cease to love when it begins to hurt - an attitude that has resulted in such widespread marital instability, high rate of divorce and general crisis in commitment.

Mother Theresa took the gospel of Christ literally, and successfully demonstrated to the men and women of the world, Christian and non-Christian alike, that authentic religion is participation in the life and character of God, and that implies love, care and nurture towards the neighbour, especially the weak and down-trodden. Like Jesus Christ and his uncompromising followers through history, Mother Theresa taught her disciples and admirers to love until it hurts. She taught all of us who care to listen that Christianity is not an intellectual exercise, but a religion of the heart, the heart which is the seat of love and passion. Mother Theresa taught us that love is no love unless it hurts. She taught us that love without sacrifice is a mere pretension. She taught us that love engages the lover wholly, totally, completely, and passionately.

Mother Theresa distinguished herself in the dark terrain of the twentieth century by confronting humanity with the stark realities of Jesus's civilization of love. In an age of quacks and charlatans, an age of emergency preachers and prosperity ministers, Mother Theresa successfully demonstrated that Christian discipleship means much more than the deafening noise of revivals and crusades. In an age when Christian ministry has become thoroughly commercialised and when "cash and carry" pastors are thriving incredibly, Mother Theresa's life is a testimony to the fact that the God of the slum dweller is perhaps more real than the God of the ivory tower podium.

Amidst the cruelties and the scandals, the griefs and the anxieties, and the frustrated hopes and the broken dreams of this century of two world wars and numerous violent skirmishes and civil disturbances, Mother Theresa made her mark as an uncompromising disciple of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. In the midst of a generation of men and women who seem to have signed a pact with the angel of death and are racing inexorably towards self-destruction, Mother Theresa has left her foot prints in the sands of time as one who refused to be conformed to the pattern of the age.

Mother Theresa died on a day when, driving along Stadium Road, Surulere, Lagos, I saw a terribly sick man, denied of treatment, starved of food and drink, abandoned to the elements and left to die under the bridge. On that same day that Mother Theresa died, thousands of my country men and women and I were confronted with the sight of this dying man under the bridge in Surelere, but we thought we could do nothing about it. We each looked the other way and left him to die with indignity, telling ourselves perhaps that the in circumstances of present-day Nigeria, and the peculiarities of Lagos, we were totally powerless. Mother Theresa died on that day, when, held up in traffic at Akpangbo in Lagos, I saw scores of tiny children, aged between three and ten, begging for a living, or running dangerously after moving vehicles in an attempt to sell some miserable wares. Thousands of my country men and I are confronted with this scandal everyday and we feign helplessness. We tell ourselves that we are only individuals "so what can we do?" Mother Theresa died on the same day when, early in the morning I heard over BBC Radio an interview with Dr. Godwin Daboh, where he revealed that his "Abacha Must Stay" Campaign group has committed 4 million dollars to boost the campaign in the international media. Yes Mother Theresa left us on that day when my country men and women were told that it was wiser to expend that colossal sum of money on political propaganda than to spend it to equip one or two of our dilapidated hospitals and schools, or provide water and electricity for one or two of our neglected villages.

In an age of widespread compromise, apathy and despondency, Mother Theresa was a woman who stood for an ideal, and who pursued the ideal passionately until the end. She made a choice for Jesus and took responsibility for her choice. She was confronted with the ugly implications of Christian discipleship in the gutters of Calcutta, and rather than look the other way, or shy away, she looked straight at those ugly human frames. She chose to do something rather than profess a guilty helplessness in the midst of the scandal of degrading poverty in a world of abundance. She affirmed the value of human life by helping the dying destitute to pass away with dignity.

As others passed by the dying destitute of Calcutta, Mother Theresa stopped and took a look. As others saw the maggot-infested bodies of the poorest of the poor in Calcutta and blocked their nostrils against the stench than oozed from the decaying human bodies, Mother Theresa stooped down and looked closely at the beautiful human persons behind those wasted frames. She recognised in them the image of God. She recognised in them brothers and sisters of Jesus. She recognised in them the least of Jesus' brethren and she remembered the passage of Matthew 25:31-45. As she looked at them, the words of Jesus echoed in her ear: "As you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me." So she touched their soiled hands. She kissed what was left of their ugly face. She pulled their disjointed frames towards her bosom, and she embraced them.

At a time of irrational competition for power and control, when men and women are crushing one another daily, staging coups and counter coups, presiding over civil war and genocide, sponsoring hired assassinations and bomb explosions, all in the mad desire for power and control, Mother Theresa successfully demonstrated that the greatest power we need for our human fulfilment is the power of the lowly heart which is available in abundance within us. Mother Theresa stooped to conquer while many of her contemporaries are daily consumed by their inordinate ambition to rule, to control, and to dictate.

Mother Theresa is a foremost apostle of the twentieth century. Like Moses, she had been to the mountain top. She is one who saw the face of God and interpreted it for humanity. She radiated the divine luminosity among those plagued by the darkness of hatred, selfishness and sin. Her eyes were blessed, and so everyone whom she looked at beheld the glory of God shinning through weakness. Her hands were blessed, and so all whom she touched felt the warmth of God's love that is capable of soothing the broken frames and the torn nerves of suffering humanity. For estranged humanity, Mother Theresa's death, as her life, is an indictment as well as a summons. Her life convicts us and at the same time challenges us. Mother Theresa never visited Nigeria, but Nigerians know all about her. Now translated into glory, may her life and example touch many in our country. May many in our land, like others across the globe take seriously the revolutionary message she preached and the radical witness she bore to love, truth, justice, mercy and compassion.

August 1997