of Charity as a new congregation limited to the diocese of Calcutta. That
same day, 11 young women began their lives as postulates of the new
order. It was a joyous occasion for all.
Over the next two years, 29 young women joined Mother Teresa. All
took up residency on the second floor of the Gomes’s house, which res-
onated with their activity. Mother Teresa wrote in her journal of the trust,
surrender, and cheerfulness of the newcomers. She observed with special
pride how dutifully they accepted the vow of poverty required of them.
It was not an easy life. The novices washed their clothes and their bod-
ies using communal buckets. They cleaned their teeth with ashes and
slept on thin pallets. Their meager pile of garments consisted only of their
cotton saris, coarse underwear, a pair of sandals, a crucifix pinned to the
left shoulder, a rosary, and an umbrella to protect them from the monsoon
rains. All these items were packed in a small bundle (potla), which they
used as a pillow.
To celebrate the completion of the new nun’s postulancy, or taking of
vows, Father Van Exem created a special ceremony. The novices came to
the cathedral dressed as Bengali brides. During the service, they went to
a room where Mother Teresa cut their hair. This practice represented a
tremendous sacrifice, as many Bengali girls regarded their long hair as a
great gift. The women’s hair was often so long that the entire process took
several hours to complete. They then reappeared in their religious habits
as novices. It was a beautiful ceremony and one that Mother Teresa com-
pletely approved for its incorporation of high church ritual with the local
culture. Father Van Exem remembered with some amusement the reac-
tion of the locals to the first ceremonies of this kind: “The ordination of a
priest takes two hours, the consecration of a bishop three hours, the re-
ception of a Missionary of Charity four hours!”^12 Not everyone, however,
was pleased at the spectacle of young Bengal brides who were in fact not
really married but had entered into the Catholic Church.
It was soon apparent that the quarters at Creek Lane were becoming
too small for the growing number of sisters. Father Van Exem and Father
Henry once again went to work searching for new quarters for the order.
One of the first nuns to join the order remembered how Mother Teresa
and her nuns helped the two priests:
Father Henry organized a procession every evening. He ac-
companied the sisters as we went through the Calcutta streets
saying the rosary aloud.... And from six to nine, we went on
the road from our house to St. Teresa’s Church and hence to
Fatima Chapel, praying there and again on our way home. We50 MOTHER TERESA