ROCHESTER HILLS — From now to eternity, she’ll be known as St. Teresa of Calcutta, but for those who share her ethnic heritage, Mother Teresa will always be Albania’s special saint.

For members of Metro Detroit’s two ethnic Albanian parishes, the canonization of Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, as she was born in 1910, as St. Teresa of Calcutta marks “a once-in-a-lifetime event,” said Peter Gojcaj, a parishioner of St. Paul Albanian Parish in Rochester Hills.

“It’s exuberance. We’re very excited about this. We feel very special and very proud of our native daughter. It’s a pretty tight-knit community, and our basic hub is our church. We’re very committed to St. Paul’s and our other church, Our Lady of Albanians (in Southfield),” Gojcaj said.



As the faithful gathered to celebrate the special day Sept. 4 in Rome and at Detroit’s Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, parishioners at St. Paul Albanian held their own solemn procession around the church to the statue of St. Teresa on the parish grounds.

Gojcaj, who attended Mother Teresa’s beatification Mass in Rome in 2003, said Albanians are especially in tune with the newly canonized saint’s witness to holiness in the face of suffering.

“The 20th century was not very pleasant to us. We had a very Stalinistic dictator who suppressed the clergy, suppressed the laity and suppressed all kinds of worship,” Gojcaj said. “I was born here, but I’ve heard stories and I’ve witnessed it. The Albanians were very committed to their faith, very devotional.”

Gojcaj, a first-generation Albanian-American whose parents migrated in 1968, recalled the great example of mercy Mother Teresa set when she visited her home country, where her mother and sister are buried, in the early 1990s.

“During communism, which was a really rough period, we lost over 200 clergy because of persecution. When Mother Teresa landed in Albania, she immediately went to this dictator’s grave and prayed for him,” Gojcaj said. “I recall reading this book about what this evil man did and how he killed people, and how persecuted the Albanian nation was. I was revolted even to hear his name, and here you have this saint, instead of being revolted, she went to pray for him, like we’re supposed to do. That left a lasting impression with me.”

St. Teresa also left a lasting impression on Kanto Dushaj, who had the pleasure of meeting her during a visit to Rome on April 27, 1993.

Dushaj, who was director of religious education at St. Paul Albanian Parish at the time, was attending a papal Mass and reached out to the Rome-based Missionaries of Charity on a whim to see whether he could meet Mother Teresa, who was also attending the Mass. To his great surprise, the answer was yes.

“The sisters (later) said I had a one in a million chance of meeting her the way I did,” Dushaj said.

Dushaj, who attended the Mass of thanksgiving for her canonization at Detroit’s cathedral, said when he asked Mother Teresa what she prayed about, she confided that she prayed often for her native country.

“She gave me about 30 minutes of her time, and we talked. She was an amazing person to talk to, and she was an unbelievable, remarkable person. I was very thrilled to have met her, and for her to give me 30 minutes of her time, it was like talking to my mother or my sister.”

Gojcaj said St. Paul Albanian Parish is planning a five-day mission Sept. 25-29 (each night starting at 7 p.m.) focusing on the spiritual works of mercy, with a special opening night planned on the “extraordinary life of St. Teresa.” Another event is planned for Nov. 5 to commemorate the beatification of 38 martyrs in northern Albania. The parish is at 525 W. Auburn Road, Rochester Hills.

Gojcaj said Mother Teresa will always be an icon of mercy in the Albanian community, and for the world at large.

“She was selfless, and she gave everything for God. I can only wish I was 1 percent as holy as she is,” Gojcaj said. “She was just a pint-sized lady, but mammoth when it comes to spirituality and moral uprightness.”