Digital age: the changes in economy, society, politics

Abstract

behind her father’s painful death, turned out to be incompatible with the strict racial hierarchy within the Loreto Mission which gradually contributed to her decision to part ways and establish her own order. The discriminations she faced, especially during the Loreto years, subsequently motivated her to overcome the racial boundaries which significantly guided her vision to experiment with a transcendental spirituality. The third part also suggests that, though in the years following the establishment of the Missionaries of Charity, the relationship between Mother Teresa and the Vatican had strengthened for several pragmatic reasons, there had been no significant change in the Vatican’s policy towards Albania. Equally important in this section is Alpion’s rebuttal of the recent tendency to uncritically attribute a kind of patriotism to the image of Mother Teresa, akin to that of Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero of the 15 century. The text suggests that despite her repeated attempts at a reconciliation with her nation, her nationality remained a perpetual anomaly in the context of her spiritual quest. Considering the wealth of new historical evidences that the book brings into light, the necessity of this study is evident in its assertion that Mother Teresa’s beliefs and actions not merely sprang out of an innate spiritual constitution but was also an individual response to crises that were facilitated by the history of her nation. Her life reflected many trials and tribulations that were common to the people of her community. Alpion’s narrative is interspersed with insightful genealogical and biographical details of Mother Teresa’s life that are often overlooked by the biographers and hagiographers alike—her intimacies, relationships with her mother, siblings, cousin Filomela, and the special bond with her father, thereby locating specific behavioural and psychological motivations behind her spirituality. It vividly draws upon her joys, frustrations, religious proclivities, her complicated yet comforting relationship with Jesus and a constant struggle to comprehend Godhead. This pioneering book endows the modern saint with a human history.