Calcutta (Fides Service) - The Missionaries of Charity, better known as the Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, have re-elected Sister Nirmala Joshi as their Superior for a second term of office. Sr Nirmala was re-elected by 140 delegates nuns from all over the world who had travelled to in India for the congregation's 8th General Chapter.
"Pray for the Holy Father, pray for Mother and pray for Sister and pray for our Sisters in Iraq" was the slogan of the Chapter. At this difficult time for world peace, the hearts of Mother Teresa's sisters are in Iraq, where in Baghdad their Sisters offer assistance to the people and pray for peace night and day.
Mother Teresa who will be beatified in October this year, founded the congregation if the Missionaries of Charity in 1948 "to serve the poorest of the poor" In 1961 the Institute held its first general chapter electing Mother Teresa as Superior General who handed over the direction of the Institute in 1997 six months before she died.
Sister Nirmala was born in 1934 in Nepal, the second child of a Hindu family which later moved to Bihar in India. Not long after becoming a Catholic at the age of 24 she entered the congregation of the Missionaries of Charity. Today the Institute has 4,000 members working in 703 homes in various countries all over the world. PA (Fides Service 27/3/2003 EM lines 22 Words: 241)