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Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa)

 Saint Teresa of Calcutta: Feast Day Sept. 5th 


"Do small things with great love." Not only did Mother Teresa say this, but as she served the poorest of the poor in India, she helped remind the world to see Jesus in the eyes of every human-being. Today, as my family celebrated this holy and influential saint of the 20th century, we incorporated two cultures into our meal. Since Mother Teresa was born in Macedonia to parents of Albanian descent, we made Albanian inspired "Tarator sauce"—modifying it to make it a bit more like Tzatziki sauce— for our appetizer, and served it with roasted zucchini, red bell peppers and tomatoes. For our main course, we made Indian chicken curry with basmati rice and naan bread, since Mother Teresa spent most of her life serving the poor in India. There are lots of recipes for homemade chicken curry sauce and naan bread, but if you want to keep it simple, you can buy pre-made curry sauce and naan bread—that's what my family did. The craft that we made in honor of Mother Teresa, was blue and white crosses (representing the colors worn by the religious order she founded—The Order of the Missionaries of Charity), which we then taped around a candle to make a centerpiece for our table.        


    (My four year old daughter decided to get creative and draw her own cross and color it purple)








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