Dear Prime Minister, Mr. Kurti,
Dear Deputy Prime Minister,
Dear members of the government cabinet,
Dear Mayor, Mr. Totaj,
Dear excellences, ambassadors of various countries,
Dear Bishopric representatives,
Dear participants.
It is a great honour for me today, on the 25th anniversary of the death of our mother, Saint Teresa, to participate at the inauguration of the exhibition dedicated to Mother Teresa in her museum here in Prizren and to remember with you the great life work and the perfect moral example that she gave to humanity.
The inauguration of this exhibition, as well as the establishment of the museum itself, is only a small step in the creation of collective memory for our great mother who, connected devotion to the man with a devotion to God, creating the symbiosis of eternal love which she then gave to all mankind as a perfect personal example.
The inauguration of this exhibition here, on the family land of our Mother Teresa, is a sign of the care that we, her compatriots, show towards Saint Agnes, but also towards a family, which was a symbol of generosity, hospitality and offering of love towards everyone, especially towards the poorest. Therefore, allow me to thank the Ministry of Culture and all those who took care that today we can inaugurate this exhibition.
Caring for the legacy of Mother Teresa is not a memory that is only related to her ethnicity, or the greatness of her work, but it is care first of all for the example she gave to humanity. Through this personal example, she became a universal symbol, demonstrating the character of her people, according to which the honour, generosity and help for the poor are moral and customary principles.
As part of this care, the institutions of our country, together with the Bishopric of Kosovo, from August 26, which marks the birth of the Albanian saint, until September 5, when we are marking the quarter century of her passing into eternity, with a series of activities are celebrating the life and work of our great humanist. We will preserve and deepen this care each year continuously because the care for our sacred cannot only be related to certain dates. It must unite us and inspire us every day as if she herself started each day to be the first and the last at the same time: full of life and love for the man.
Therefore, the inauguration of this exhibition in the museum which will bear the seal of her work has a special cultural and humanitarian weight. We, as fellow citizens of our saint's country, and many foreign visitors will return here to find evidence of the roots of Mother Teresa's family and the hearth that raised generations of her family members. It will serve from now onwards as a pilgrimage centre for all those who, looking for goodness in life and great examples of altruism and love for man, will come here to learn how a small hearth in one place small, in which lives a nation with a big heart, gave the world the universal example of dedication and immeasurable sacrifice for the man.
In this museum, you will find not only the history of the Bojaxhiu family but also the model on which each young man or woman will lean, whose dream will be to one day follow Mother Teresa's example to serve mankind, to gladden their hearts.
Mother Teresa's request to her sisters that they should do everything to “give happiness to the poor, especially the poorest among them, which “the rich”, as she said, “can provide to themselves with money”, is an example of how a man can live in happiness and provide it to those who cannot get it themselves, offering support, backing and love to those who perceive that they can never achieve it.
Her life principle that, if you want to identify with the poor, it is not enough to support them, but you must try to become one of them, to feel with them and for them, is the deepest universal principle, the example whose Mother Teresa bequethed to all humanity.
“Vocation within a vocation”, as she called this kind of dedication, which coincides with her second vocation, which appeared to her during a train trip through the plains of India, after the first one, which she received in Letnica of Kosovo is the unrepeatable example in the history of humanity, when identification in love, the test of being loyal to the one it serves, is an insurmountable model from which we can constantly learn and which we must try to follow eternally.
Therefore, today, when we are remembering the 25th anniversary of her passing away, we proudly say that Mother Teresa represents not only the symbol of love, peace and humanity, but also a great historical destiny, which we, her descendants, must remember her every day and say out loud that she became the moral face of humanity, showing her moral tradition and that of her family, and the tradition of her Albanian people.
Historical, also because, at the time of Serbian ethnic repression against Kosovo and communist self-isolation in Albania, it turned into our representative symbol. Emphasizing her ethnicity wherever she went, family values ​​and the tradition of her people, and highlighting her homeland, as she called it, “the little homeland, yes called Albania”, she turned the attention of the world towards a small, but generous and peace-loving people.
Therefore, on days like this, but also every day of our lives, we must not stop emphasizing her name, her teachings and her extraordinary personality. As institutions and as political people, we must internalize her love for people and emphasize her peace-loving and humane orders, as our historic president, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, in the 90s, humanizing doing politics in conformity with the humane model of Saint Teresa.
So we are proud that we have offered the world the example of the Albanian woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu – Mother Teresa, the model of a gentle but determined woman, extremely devoted to people and loved by everyone, ready to sacrifice every time for others; a person who knows pain and tries to heal it for others, with sweet words and deeds, as she herself said, “small deeds, but with great love”.
God bless Saint Teresa!
May God bless this museum that we are inaugurating today!
God bless the Republic of Kosovo!
Thank you!!