Honourable Bishop of Kosovo, Your Excellency. Monsignor Dodë Gjergji!
Honourable Vicar General, the most prominent biographer of Mother Teresa, Don Lush Gjergji
Dear participants!
It is a great honour for me today, on the 111th birthday of our mother, St. Teresa, to share with you the memory of her life, as well as the love for her personality. Mother Teresa, our beloved Anjeza, baptized as Gonxhe, is a symbol of love and devotion to humanity (especially to those who needed it the most), but also to God. She linked devotion to man with devotion to God, creating the symbiosis of eternal love, which she bestowed to humanity.
For us, as her compatriots, Mother Teresa represents not only the symbol of love, peace and humanism, but also a great historical fortune, because in the time of great isolation and great ignorance of Albanian values ‹and traditions, for due to communist self-isolation in Albania, or ethnic repression in Kosovo, it became our representative symbol. Emphasizing her ethnicity, the family values and the tradition of her people, as well as pointing out her country, to which she referred to, “small, called Albania”, she turned the world's attention to a people small but generous and peace-loving, in the haunted Balkans.
Thus, Mother Teresa represents one of the most important personalities of our national history, whom our people gifted to humanity. She revealed the best values of her people: love for the people, humility and devotion to human values. Us, her compatriots, are proud that this daughter of ours revealed to the world the values of our nation and turned them into the values of humanity.
Therefore, in days like this, but also each and every day of our lives, we must never cease emphasizing her name, her teachings, her extraordinary personality. As institutions and as people of politics, but also as her compatriots, we must internalize Mother Teresa's love for the people and emphasize her peace- loving and humane messages, as did our historic president, Dr. Rugova, in the '90s, humanizing politics, according to the human model of Mother Teresa.
As a woman, meanwhile, I am proud that girls in Kosovo will be able to see the example of the Albanian woman named Anjeza Bojaxhiu – Mother Teresa, a calm but determined, extremely committed to people and loved by all, ready to at all times sacrifice oneself for others; a man who knows the pain and tries to heal the pain of others, with sweet words but also with concrete deeds, as she used to say, “small but with great love.”
Therefore, we can and should learn every day from her love for the people. To stand by all those who suffer. To be close to those in greatest need. We cannot close the door to the poor, as if mother Dranja never closed it to them, as she called them to join in her family's table, as if it were theirs. And we will never close the door to any of our friends – in accordance with our tradition – it always remains open. Because, as our historic President said, our House belongs to the friend as well.
God bless St. Teresa!
God bless Kosovo!
Thank you!