Mother Teresa: a movie review

I received this e-mail this morning:

Vic,

Mother Teresa and Cornelia's picture together is a precious one. Mother Teresa is a saint.I kept the Los Angeles Times issue that posted her death  in its headline. I kept that issue in a nicely wrapped plastic and stored it in the attic.I admire her.

Warmest regards.

Van

And it inspired me to write the following review of this movie which I saw on DVD last year..

ONLY ONE

The magic of prosthetics and make up transformed Olivia Hussey into a spitting image of Mother Teresa, the well loved dimunitive nun who devoted her life into helping the poor people of India... Somewhere after the movie started, there was a surrealistic scene where Mother Teresa saw herself in a crowded train station in India, and she focused on a dying beggar unminded by passers-by. She took the unfortunate person in her arms..Thus the over-all summary of her life work began.

ONLY ONE..is the title of a story I heard last night during a speech at the Dinner for Volunteers. One speaker told the story of a girl who was throwing back several star fishes into the ocean. One person could not help but ask her:

"What are you doing?"

The girl simply answered: " I am helping the starfish go back to the ocean so they won't dry up and die.."

"But there are so many starfishes along the beach..Do you think you can make any difference?"

The girl thought for a bit, then she answered: "That's true. I can not make any difference in all of them, but I made a difference in THAT ONE which I have just thrown back into the ocean.."

Mother Teresa did just that..She concentrated on individuals to help rather than the totality of all the world's poor people . Because no one person can change all of them in one shot. You have to help them one by one. Thus she started it, a tough, dirty job, but she did it..Now, she is immortalized when she was canonized as a Saint in just a few years after her death.

The movie, which did not rake in millions of ticket sales or nominated for Oscars was uplifting nevertheless. It did win a Golden Globe award. It showed her doing about her business for God. She looked small and helpless but she was one heaven sent mover and shaker. It is not a complete account of her life, but it highlighted her hardships in fighting red tape, negativism and the uncaring attitude of people when it comes to helping the poor.

One of her real life quotations is: "Our work is for people to know the greatness of the poor..Our work is for people who have forgotten how to smile, forgotten the human touch and have a greater hunger for these than for a plate of rice.."

At the end of her life she won international acclaim, including the Nobel Peace Prize. At the end of this movie you will discover that even without violence and bloodshed a movie is worth keeping to be viewed again, especially during Christmas or Easter, or maybe during a quiet Sunday afternoon.

This DVD deserves a place together with the other titles like THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON ( the story of St. Francis) and THERESE, a movie about another Saint from the small town of Avila.

All  these movies are  about loving Humanity---#