In her life she never imagined that people would regard her as the greatest Albanian since the medieval warlord and patriot Skanderbeg (1405-1468). In fact, Alpion discovered that she swore to her mother when she left that “I will never speak in Albanian until we meet again.” And she kept that promise, within the bounds of civility. She never did see her mother again.
She had a cousin and adopted sister, Filomena, whom she loved dearly, who migrated to Australia. Mother Teresa visited her in 1969, and insisted on speaking English, even though Filomena had never mastered the language. Even during eight trips to Albania late in her life, she spoke in English. Alpion unravels this mystery by reviewing the ceaseless pain of Albanian history and digging into the saint’s background on both sides of her family. Albanians cannot reminisce about a glorious past as a powerful empire, as other small European countries can –the Bulgarians, the Armenians, the Greeks, Venice or Lithuania.
Periodic invasions and persecutions by Serbs and Turks have sent waves of Albanian migrants fleeing both east and west. In Syria there are – or used to be, before the chaos of its barbarous civil war – small communities of ethnic Albanians called the Arnaut. In Italy there are enough small villages of Albanian speakers to justify two Byzantine-rite, Albanian-speaking Catholic bishops. In Syria there are or used to be before the chaos of its barbarous civil war small communities of ethnic Albanians called the Arnaut. In Italy there are enough small villages of Albanian speakers to justify two Byzantine rites, Albanian speaking catholic bishops People with Albanian backgrounds have played significant roles in history.
Apart from Skanderbeg and Kemal Atatürk, Alpion makes a case for the Corsican adventurer Napoleon Bonaparte. And there have been four Popes from Albania or with Albanian backgrounds, most recently the 18th Century pontiff Clement XI (who was born as Giovanni Francesco Albani). Ethnic cleansing and massacres continued into the 20the Centaury. . As late as the 1950s the government of Yugoslavia and Turkey made a pact which would have allowed the expatriation of one million. Albaninians to Turkey, in the end about 100,000 were expelled.
What does this grim background have to do with Mother Teresa Alpion has dug into family history and discovered that it is blood stained and nationalistic. And then there were the ardent nationalists of Gonxhes businessman Father Nikolle. He worked to promote education in Albanian and lobbied to keep Albanian school from closing down under Serb pressure. He even managed to secure funding for existing schools and for opening new ones. He opposed the creation of the kingdom of Yugoslavia which scooped up Albanian territory after World War 1. Only Filomena who came to live with Gonxhe and her mother Roza Alion believes that these childhood experiences prepared Mother Teresa for her vocation in the missionary of Charit.it was during those turbulent formative years in Skopje that Gonxha lifelong gratitude to Jesus began.
This was also a moment when she started thinking that the best way to show her thankfulness was to help people in distress. This was one of the reasons why she chose India as her destination when she learned about its poor from Balkan missionaries, who had served there. According to the Author and the new information suggests that Mother Teresa was well prepared for what catholic mystics call the dark night of the soul which she was shaken by doubts about God’s existence and his loving Providence throughout her long years as a nun.
Author by Gazim Alpion and Reviewed by Prof Ngala