Remembering my aunt, the saint

Alois Gumbar is a famous goldsmith in Skopje, the Macedonian capital and birthplace of Mother Teresa, his mother's cousin. His jewelery shop "Luis" is located only 200 meters from the spot where his famous aunt was born under the name Agnes Gondza Bojadziu (1910-1997) and the memorial house built as a tribute to her.

Standing among the shelves filled with glittering jewels, he expressed his excitement about being invited to the canonization ceremony for Mother Teresa in Vatican City on Sunday.

"I went to Rome many times, but I never had the opportunity to meet the Pope, even though I wished for it. In March, the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, came to Skopje. Macedonian government officials invited me to attend a dinner hosted in his honor," the 66-year-old devout Catholic told DW. "During the dinner conversation, the Cardinal expressed his wish that I should attend the canonization ceremony of Mother Teresa. I feel very honored, but on the other hand I feel so small and unimportant in comparison to my aunt's great deeds," he said, pointing to the dozens of pictures of Mother Theresa displayed in his shop.

'Her lesson was simple and noble'

He treasures the memories of his few encounters with his aunt. Gumbar recalls her visit to Skopje in 1980, when she was named an honorary citizen of her birth town and planted three pine trees in the central city square.

"She arrived in Skopje with two pairs of sandals. One of them was torn apart, the other was new. I asked her: Why don't you wear the new ones? She replied: 'My journey is long - and long it shall be, my son. I have to spare the new ones,'" he said, adding that she arrived with a very small bag and politely refused her family's offer to buy her new clothes.

"She was modest and simple in every way. I remember that she only ate once a day. She said: ‘I don't need anything more than knowing that the poor in the world had something to eat today.' Her lesson was simple and noble: The more you help the poor, the richer you are. Nothing is important except for loving and helping others," Gumbar said.

'My jewels would mean nothing to her'

How would his aunt assess the value of the expensive jewels in his shop? "They would mean nothing to her. She grew up in a wealthy family. Her father, Nikola, was a merchant, trading in tobacco, medicine and gold, from Macedonia to Romania. She had everything for a comfortable life," Gumbar said. "But she regarded all this as unimportant. To her, the most important thing was faith in God, the love and help for those in need - the sick and the poor."

His famous aunt was brought up in a Catholic family and left Skopje for Dublin when she was 18 years old. From there, she travelled to Calcutta and joined the order of Loreto as a nun, under the name Teresa. To help the poor and the sick, she founded the "Missionaries of Mercy" order in 1950, which has missions in more than 100 countries throughout the world today.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Discussions among locals about whether she was Macedonian or Albanian always end with a reminder of her famous words: "I am human and I belong only to God."

The legal heir of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa died in Calcutta in 1997 at the age of 87 and was buried with one of the two family crosses. The other one is kept by Gumbar, who claims to be the only legal heir of Mother Teresa, according to the documents he possesses. But this aspect was not so important, he said: "What matters most is her legacy to the world and her message that the world is not only hungry for bread, but even more for love."

In 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa as the "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta," after her first miracle was confirmed - the healing of the Indian woman Monika Besra, who had a tumor in her stomach. The healing of a Brazilian man diagnosed with multiple brain tumors in 2008, whose wife prayed to Mother Teresa, is considered to be her second miracle. Now that his healing is confirmed, one day before the 19th anniversary of her death, Pope Francis will declare Mother Teresa a saint.

"We had to wait for at least two miracles to be confirmed before she may be declared a saint. But I think that the first miracle is that she had been helping the leprous for years, but she never got infected," her nephew said. "Wasn't this a true miracle?"