MOTHER TERESA -- tiny Gypsy woman, Great Saint to us all.

I always believed she was an Albanian Gypsy, but a Roma friend told me
she was a Macedonian Gypsy living among Albanians. One thing I am sure
of, Mother Teresa, never asked the question – who are you, where are you
from, what ethnic group do you belong to? She worked among the poorest
of the poor, hers was the heart of true humanity. A guiding light in a
destructive world, nobody deserves more than Mother Teresa to have the
Empire State building lit in honor of her 100th birthday.

In fact her type of religiosity and goodness of the heart I have found
among other religious Gypsies. I have been religious without being a
churchgoer since my childhood days in a war zone. I once told a Roma
pastor, a church is only as good as its pastor. I have come across only
a few religious leaders who actually stuck their neck out to help the
persecuted. I rarely felt God in the European churches I grew up with. I
did feel his presence, a true gift, in a Roma church in Florida, which I
frequent as often as I can. There too, the pastor, his wife and his
congregation, even in these tough economic times, try to reach out to
whoever is poor and near.

We are all of the same human race that from time to time produces a true
star. Mother Teresa is such a star. She would have wanted us to stick
together, and work toward a better world.