by Nirmala Carvalho

Abandoned by their families, many lepers end up begging in the streets, where the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa find them and bring them in, wash them and treated them with dignity. Sister Mary, a missionary from Kerala, talks to AsiaNews about her eight years at Delhi’s Prem Nagar Leprosy Center. “The Spirit of Mother is alive and ever present in Prem Nagar.” Although “The disease may even disfigure, here there is no repugnance from anyone towards them.”

Mumbai (AsiaNews) – “It is Jesus who gives us the strength and grace to take care of his people. Our deep sense of belonging to Jesus makes us feel compassion for the poorest of the poor,” Sister Mary told AsiaNews. The 42-year-old nun was speaking about the upcoming first centennial of her birth on 26 August.

Kerala-born Sister Mary has been a member of the Missionaries of Charity for 20 years. For eight years, she worked at the Prem Nagar Leprosy Center in Delhi, one of the Order’s most important leprosy facilities.  

“When I worked at the Prem Nagar (town of love), we treated 350 leprosy patients. They came from poor families who had abandoned them once they were diagnosed with the disease, forcing them to beg in the streets. Our job was to go out, find them, bring them in and wash them, listen to them, encourage them and above all treat them as human beings with dignity,” she said.

“For me, the transformation of these people was extraordinary, just to see how they responded to the touch of a gentle hand. It was as if Mother Teresa would touch their hearts, putting a smile back on their faces.”

Leprosy is a terrible disease. Sister Mary explains that many of the patients see their body become disfigured, lose sensation here and there, because of it. Sadly, some of them are children.

However, “the Spirit of Mother Teresa is alive and ever present in Prem Nagar. In society, leper patients are ostracised because of the stigma attached to their illness. The disease may even disfigure,” but “here there is no repugnance from anyone towards them.”

Despite the isolation society imposes on people living with leprosy, volunteers from every caste or creed come to the house to help out, the nun said. People from different walks of life contribute in different ways to the help provided to the patients.

“Prem Nagar represents Mother Teresa’s work, her work of love. For me, this makes it a place of peace and love,” Sister Mary said.

In describing her work, she said that it “was not unusual to see a missionary of charity pull worms out of leprosy patients. Yet, they are not stigmatised; everyone is treated with tenderness and love,” because “the more we are open to the weak, the more our relationship opens up and becomes compassionate.”

In fact, Sister Mary remembers, “In one of her meditations, Mother Teresa would say, ‘Who is Jesus to me? Jesus is the leper,’ whose wounds I wash.”

• india
• delhi
• prem
• nagar
• leprosy
• centre
• sister
• mary
• mother
• teresa
• missionaries
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• charity