Mother Teresa and The Nobel Banquet

For the first time and only once in the history of Nobel Banquet, it was canceled in 1979, on the request of Mother Teresa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of that year. It's taken as one of the greatest examples in the todays era for the humanity, and love. Here is some information about Mother Teresa, about The Nobel Banquet and then about the details of 1979 Nobel peace prize Banquet cancellation. 

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje*, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. At the age of eighteen she joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns. She was a Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, She took her initial vows as a nun in India on May 24, 1931. From 1931 to 1948 she taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta (Now Kolkata), but the suffering and poverty around, moved her so much that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. With very meagre funds, she started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial supporters.

Mother Teresa received permission to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity" on October 7, 1950.  Primary task of them was to love and care for those, to whom nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.

'The Missionaries of Charity' throughout the world are aided and assisted by Co-Workers who became an official International Association on March 29, 1969. By the 1990s there were over one million Co-Workers in more than 40 countries. Along with the Co-Workers, the lay Missionaries of Charity try to follow Mother Teresa's spirit and charisma in their families.

Mother Teresa's work has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world and she has received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971) and the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding (1972). She also received the Balzan Prize (1979) and the Templeton and Magsaysay awards. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work.

Mother Teresa died on Sept. 5, 1997, of cardiac arrest. 

On the evening of December 10, The Nobel Banquet is held after the award ceremony. Nobel Committee welcomes total of 250 guests, before in due course finding their places at the round tables in the banqueting hall of the Grand Hotel in the centre of Oslo, laid for the occasion with the special Nobel dinner service to enjoy a five-course gourmet meal.

The laureate, whose table is right in the middle of the hall, seated with the Laureate are the Nobel Committee and its permanent secretary, the President of the Storting, the Prime Minister, and (since 2006) the King and Queen of Sweden. Other guests include Ministers, members of the Storting, and prominent representatives of public institutions, idealistic organizations, as well as from cultural and commercial life.

Traditionally at The Nobel Banquet, three speeches are given First, the deputy chairman of the Nobel Committee speaks in honour of the Laureate, The Laureate speaks second. Finally the President of the Storting delivers an after-dinner speech.

The Nobel Banquet was formerly held in alternate years at the Grand Hotel and Hotel Bristol, but is now always held at the Grand Hotel, which also has a special Nobel suite. Before 1930, the banquet in Sweden was held in the ballroom of Stockholm's Grand Hotel.

The Nobel Peace Prize Banquet is a formal event where gentlemen are required to appear in black tie, while ladies should wear an evening gown. Wearing ones national costume is a completely acceptable.

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, at the age of 69, for her outstanding devotion to the poor in Calcutta’s slums Time magazine reported at that time, “She received the news with characteristic lack of fuss,”

In accepting the prize, she expressed her unequivocal opposition to abortion. “Mother Teresa requested The Nobel banquet in her honor, be canceled." She wanted $7,000 cost of the banquet to be used to feed the poor in India. Nobel officials offered to donate $7,000 and also hold a banquet; Mother Teresa held fast, asking that whatever money was available to honor her be donated to the poor. The people of Norway responded to her selflessness by raising an additional $52,000 to support her work.

Indeed she's a gift God sent to us. Mother Teresa is the greatest person, the world can have .