Mother
Teresa's Successor Sister Nirmala Dies at 81
Sister Nirmala Joshi, the first to lead the Missionaries of
Charity after Mother Teresa, died Monday night, in Calcutta. She was 81 years
old. She had suffered from heart problems for the past few years. After a
kidney failure, on Friday, June 19 the doctors wanted to hospitalize her to
undergo dialysis. The nun, however, preferred to stay with her sisters: After a
Mass celebrated by a Jesuit priest in the hospital, she was discharged. Her
funeral is scheduled for 4pm (local time) Wednesday at the headquarters of the
Congregation.
Tuesday her body will be laid in the Church of St. John, before
being transferred by evening to the Missionaries’ home in Tengra, a Calcutta
suburb.
Sister Nirmala was born in 1934 in Ranchi, capital of Jharkand,
which at the time, was a part of the province of Bihar and Orissa under the
British Empire. His parents were from Nepal and her father was a British army
officer, until India’s independence in 1947. Although her parents were
Hindus, Nirmala was educated by Christian missionaries in Patna, capital of
Bihar state.
It was then that she first met Mother Teresa and expressed her
desire to share in her work. She soon became a Catholic and joined the
Missionaries of Charity.
A graduate in political science and after a period spent as a
lawyer, she became one of the first sisters of the congregation to lead a
foreign mission, when she was sent to Panama.
In 1976, Sister Nirmala started the contemplative branch of the
Missionaries of Charity, of which she remained in charge until her election as
successor to Mother Teresa in 1997, six months after the death of the founder.
January 26, 2009 (Republic Day) the Indian government awarded
her the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award of the country, for
services rendered to the country.
Her term as superior general of the Missionaries of Charity
ended March 25, 2009: she was succeeded by German Sister Mary Prema
Pierick, who is still at the head of the congregation of Mother Teresa.
(AsiaNews)
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