New Bouquet for Mother Teresa

--”We must accept (AIDS). . . . Not as a punishment, but as a thing that gives us peace,” Mother Teresa said as she visited a day center for AIDS patients in Oakland opened by her religious order. The 77-year-old founder and head of the Missionaries of Charity, which opened The Center in October to provide acceptance, spiritual guidance and a place to just relax, met with several dozen people with AIDS, many of whom left their hospital beds for the occasion. At one point, she left the building to greet a man who was too sick to get out of his car. During a later talk to volunteers, she said: “You have been chosen to show great love, great compassion.” Outside, about 50 supporters gathered to try to catch a glimpse of the “saint of the gutters.” She was cheered and presented with roses. Mother Teresa won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her order’s worldwide accomplishments. The Missionaries of Charity now has 2,000 members, all but 500 of them women.

--Maria Esther Chavez’s family is a lot larger than she had expected. The 28-year-old Pharr, Tex., woman had been told she would give birth to twins. Instead, she had quintuplets. “They told me two. They’re fine, thanks to God,” she said in Spanish. Chavez said she was about 7 1/2 months pregnant when a girl was born, followed by another girl, then three boys, within about four minutes. The babies’ weights ranged from 2 pounds, 3 ounces to 3 pounds, said McAllen Medical Center spokeswoman Nelda Hernandez. “Everybody’s stable, so far,” Hernandez said. Chavez said she did not take fertility drugs. She said she and her husband, 41-year-old Baldemar Chavez, have one other child, a 4-year-old girl, and, no, they do not plan to have any more children.

--Ivana Trump, the Czechoslovakian-born wife of multi-millionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump, was sworn in as a U.S. citizen in New York along with 141 other people. After the ceremony at the U.S. District Courthouse, the 10-year resident of the United States said that she found the ceremony, conducted by Judge Charles Haight, “very, very touching . . . it was hard not to cry.” Smiling and clutching her citizenship certificate, Ivana Trump, president of the Plaza Hotel and Trump’s Castle Hotel & Casino, said she became a citizen because of her love for her husband and the United States. “I’m very proud of my wife,” Donald Trump said outside the courthouse. “I’m very proud of my country. It’s a great country and that’s where a great woman should be. Now they’re both matched up perfectly.”