12. Match the word on the left with the correct meaning on the right.

1. spouse, n 2. sore, n 3. vocation, n 4. convent, n 5. communion, n 6. vow, n 7. slum, n 8. to be confirmed

A. the ceremony in which people eat bread and drink wine as signs of Christ’s body and blood; B. to be made a full member of the Christian church in a special ceremony; C. a strong belief that you have been chosen by God to be a priest or a nun; D. a religious promise that you will do something for God, the church; E. a wife (or husband); F. a building where nuns live; G. a house or a part of a city that is in a very bad condition, where very poor people live H. a painful, often red, place on your body caused by a wound or infection.

13. Find the opposites to the following words and make up your own sentences with them.

severe, a successor, n profound, a compassion, n to be assigned rapid, a

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14. Work in pairs. Imagine that you are a student from foreign country and you know nothing about Mother Teresa. Ask your classmate about her life.

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15. Every year, on the occasion of Mother Teresa’s birthday, the newspapers and magazines get filled with Mother Teresa quotations. Below are presented some famous quotes by Mother Teresa, so check out and discuss them:

“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired”.

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies”.

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person”.

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat”.

“If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it”.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them”.

“Intense love does not measure, it just gives”.

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier”.

16. You are going to read an interesting text about Margaret Hilda Thatcher. Do you agree that she was really outstanding woman of the 20-th century? Why? Try to prove your point of view.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t”. Margaret Hilda Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher’s political career has been one of the most remarkable of modern times. Born in October 1925 at Grantham, a small market town in eastern England, she rose to become the first (and for two decades the only) woman to lead a major Western democracy. She won three successive General Elections and served as British Prime Minister for more than eleven years (1979-90), a record unmatched in the twentieth century.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher’s sense of self-confidence and ambition ruled her life from the time she was a small child in Grantham, though her Oxford years and during her early years in politics.It led her to become the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain, and also helped through her difficult political years as “Attila the Hun”. Margaret Hilda was the second daughter of Alfred and Beatrice Roberts.She often stated that she was brought up very strictly: “I owe everything in my life to two things: a good home, and a good education. My home was ordinary, but good in the sense that my parents were passionately interested in the future of my sister and myself. At the same time, they gave us a good education – not only in school, but at home as well”. As a child, thrift and practicality were instilled in Margaret’s character. The Methodist church played an active part in the lives of the Roberts. She attended good schools as a child and spent her years studying with the intent of attending Oxford. Margaret arrived at Oxford in the autumn of 1943. During her years here, Margaret worked in a canteen for the war effort, continued her interest in music by joining various choirs and joined the Oxford University Conservative Association where she became very active in it’s political activities.  After Oxford, Margaret became the youngest female candidate of the Dartford Association. She was unofficially engaged to Denis Thatcher at this time, and they married in December 1951. Twins were born the following year. During this period, she studied law and in 1954 she was a candidate for the Hoisington Conservative Association.  Margaret won in a Tory landslide at Finchley, a suburb of London in 1959. Her parliamentary career had begun. A stroke of good luck gave her the opportunity of presenting her first bill almost immediately. This bill was to allow the press to attend the meetings of the local councils. The bill was eventually passed and it greatly enhanced her reputation. In 1964 she was part of the opposition and saw the other side of politics. Between 1970 and 1974 Thatcher was the Secretary of State for Education and Science. She enjoyed the tough verbal conflict of parliamentary debates. She had a quick mind and an even quicker tongue, along with an enormous self-confidence. She liked to fight and liked to win.

In 1975, the Conservatives were the first party in Britain to chose a woman as a leader and potential Prime Minister: It was the backbenchers, not the Leader, or his Shadow Cabinet, who forced a ballot, and it was a backbenchers-candidate who emerged triumphant from it. When the election was announced on January 23, and in the first ballot Margaret had the support of only one member of a Shadow Cabinet of 23 she was regarded with suspicion by most of those managing the party machine at Central Office, and opposed by many in the National Union. In short, she was an anti- establishment candidate. In May 1979, Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Her party won again in 1983 and 1987.  Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in November 1990, after loosing the support of the party. She remained in the House of Commons until 1992. In the same year, Thatcher was made a Baroness by the queen and became a member of the House of Lords.

After 1990 Lady Thatcher (as she became) remained a potent political figure. She wrote two best-selling volumes of memoirs – The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995) – while continuing for a full decade to tour the world as a lecturer. A book of reflections on international politics – Statecraft – was published in 2002. During the period she made some important interventions in domestic British politics, notably over Bosnia and the Maastricht Treaty. In March 2002, following several small strokes, she announced an end to her career in public speaking.

Denis Thatcher, her husband of more than fifty years, died in June 2003, receiving warm tributes from all sides.

Margaret Thatcher remains an intensely controversial figure in Britain. Critics claim that her economic policies were divisive socially, that she was harsh in her politics, and hostile to the institutions of the British welfare state. Defenders point to a transformation in Britain’s economic performance over the course of the Thatcher Governments and those of her successors as Prime Minister. Trade union reforms, privatisation, deregulation, a strong anti-inflationary stance, and control of tax and spending have created better economic prospects for Britain than seemed possible when she became Prime Minister in 1979.

Critics and supporters alike recognise the Thatcher premiership as a period of fundamental importance in British history. Margaret Thatcher accumulated huge prestige over the course of the 1980s and often compelled the respect even of her bitterest critics. Indeed, her effect on the terms of political debate has been profound. Whether they were converted to “Thatcherism”, or merely forced by the electorate to pay it lip service, the Labour Party leadership was transformed by her period of office and the “New Labour” politics of Tony Blair would not have existed without her.

In 2005, Thatcher celebrated her eightieth birthday. A huge event was held in her honor and was attended by Queen Elizabeth, Tony Blair, and nearly 600 other friends, family members, and former colleagues. Two years later, a sculpture of the strong conservative leader was unveiled in the House of Commons. While her policies and actions are still debated, Thatcher has left an indelible impression on Britain and world politics.