ends meet. For Mother Teresa, this was a bitter blow; her divine Provi-
dence, which had made possible the impossible, seemed strangely absent
now. But she took the news with a strong heart, yet sad that there was
nothing she could do to help her mother and sister when she had found
ways to help so many others around the world.
Yet, June 1970, Mother Teresa had a bittersweet homecoming. The
Red Cross extended an invitation to her to visit Yugoslavia. From there
she made the journey to Prizren, where her family originated, and then
traveled to Skopje, the city of her birth. Here she met with the local
bishop and visited the shrine at Letnice, where she had often visited to
pray and meditate as a young girl. She made it known that she hoped one
day to return to Skopje to open a Missionary of Charity home.
Later that year, Drana wrote to her son Lazar stating that her only wish
was to see him, his family, and her daughter Gonxha before she died. Both
Lazar and Mother Teresa worked hard to bring Aga and Drana to Italy for
a reunion. At one point, Mother Teresa, while on a visit to Rome, paid a
visit to the Albanian embassy seeking permission to bring her mother and
sister to Italy. Lazar, though limited in what he could do, tried working
with Catholic Relief Services to help relocate Aga and Drana in the event
that they would be allowed to leave. These attempts proved futile: the Al-
banian government refused to permit either Aga or Drana to leave the
country.
Mother Teresa then thought about traveling to Albania. But, to her
dismay, she learned that while she might be allowed to enter the country,
communist authorities could very well prevent her from leaving. Finally,
on July 12, 1972, Mother Teresa received word that her mother had died.
Not more than a year later, on August 25, 1973, more sad news came,
when she learned that her sister Aga had also died. Mother Teresa’s pain
and grief were not so much for herself, but for the mother and sister who
suffered.
The Missionaries of Charity also suffered severe setbacks during the
1970s. In 1971, after much fanfare, the order opened a house in Belfast,
Northern Ireland, in the Catholic ghetto of Ballymurphy. Belfast was, at
the time, a city under siege, as Catholic and Protestant factions engaged
in almost daily violence. Mother Teresa sent four sisters who came with a
violin and two blankets each. The house where they were to live had been
previously occupied by a priest who had been shot just as he had finished
administering last rites to a wounded man. The house was completely
empty and had been the target of vandals. Undaunted, the sisters began
working with a small group of Anglican nuns in the hope of helping to
end strife in the city.
BLESSINGS AND BLAME 109