Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography
by Kathryn Spink
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kathryn SpinkEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-25
ISBN: 0062515535
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: HarperOne
Book Reviews of Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography
Book Review: Getting to Know the Pen While Reading the Letter
Summary: 4 Stars
"During her lifetime, Mother Teresa resisted having her biography written in full...in 1991, she gave Kathryn Spink, who had known Mother Teresa and been involved with her mission for thirteen years, to proceed with a full account of her life...It was also understood that the book would be completed only after Mother Teresa's death." This is part of the text from the inside of the front dust jacket of the book.
Few authors received this imprimatur of Mother Teresa. If for no other reason, this reason calls the inquirer of Mother Teresa's "life and views and of the work" (front jacket) to consider the book seriously.
It may amaze some Catholics to know that an authorized biographer of Mother Teresa is not a Catholic. Kathryn Spink is a Christian of sorts but not a Catholic. However, she loves the words and work of Mother Teresa and quotes Mother Teresa's opinion of the Missionaries of Charity as the, "most disorganized organization in the world" (Preface, vi). In that quote, it could be said, Mother Teresa was giving, indirectly, an answer to Christopher Hitchens caustic critique of her. It is hard for unbelievers to understand how disorder in the Church is evidence of the order of God--and yet it is, because God can write with broken pens.
There are no footnotes, no notes at all. However, there are many quotes that are gems in the thought and work of Mother Teresa including her Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (Appendix B). Some quotes are what Christian readers expect, "I said that even if they helped one person, that was all right. Jesus would have died for one person, for one sinner" (p. 87). Others quotes only non-Christians will appreciate, "You call him Ishwar some call him Allah, some simply God, but we all have to acknowledge that it is he who made us for greater things: to love and to be loved" (pp. 155-56). There is a short but adequate Index.
The style is intimate, enjoyable, and flowing from an obvious depth of knowledge of the subject addressed. There are a number of pictures in the center of the book that historically progress through her life as if taken from the family album.
There are a couple of criticisms about the book that need to be addressed. First, it does not confront Mother Teresa's adversaries. There is only an illusion to Mr. Hitchens and not by name (p. 275). Second, there is a lack of comments, interviews, and commentary from colleagues and associates. Third, there is plenty of data about her life but the depth of how each subject is handled sometimes seems a little thin.
In response to the second and third criticisms, authors are painfully aware of this formula, pages plus cost equal higher price plus less audience. Most people do not want to pay a fortune for a book and the numbers of books sold declines as the page number increases. In this instantaneous age, few have the attention span for longer books.
Those interested in Mother Teresa's thought should inquirer into Kathryn Spink's book, The Miracle of Love. It is a shorter work but a fruitful read.
Summary of Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography
During her lifetime, Mother Teresa resisted having her full biography written. Then, in 1991, realizing that accounts of her life and work could inspire others, she gave Kathryn Spink, who had long been intimately involved with the work of Mother Teresa and her order and co-workers around the world, permission to proceed with a complete biography on the understanding that it would not be finished until after her death.Here, now, is the complete story of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a woman regarded by millions as a contemporary saint for her dedication to serving the poorest of the poor. From her childhood in Balkans as a member of a remarkably openhearted and religious family to her work in India, from attending the victims of war-torn Beirut to pleading with George Bush and Saddam Hussein to choose peace over war. Mother Teresa was driven by an absolute faith. She consistently claimed that she was simply responding to Christ's boundless love for her and for all of humanity. When People magazine interviewed Kathryn Spink for their cover story on Mother Teresa 's death, Spink told them: "What one has to understand about Mother Teresa is that she sees Christ in every person she encounters." Clad in her white peasant sari with blue edging, Mother Teresa brought to the world a great and living lesson in joyful and selfless love.
For years Mother Teresa has appeared at the top of every list of the world's most influential women, in company with Diana, Princess of Wales, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Different in almost every respect from those famous women, she did share one important quality: she was a star. In Mother Teresa, biographer Kathryn Spink goes beyond her subject's public persona to examine the life of a modern-day saint. In the course of tracing Mother Teresa's life--from her birth in Albania to her years in Ireland and then India with the Loreto Sisters to the founding of her own order, the Missionaries of Charity--Spink explores the ramifications of her subject's life and work on the lives of those she labored for and with.
Mother Teresa's frail appearance belied the steely will and public-relations savvy she brought to the task of loosening potential donor's purse strings and attracting attention to her cause. Was Mother Teresa a kind of spiritual colonialist, as critics have charged, more interested in helping the poor die in a state of grace than in changing the conditions in which they lived? Spink discusses this and other thorny questions with grace and honesty, at the same time emphasizing her subject's admirable achievements.
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