MOTHER TERESA / SAINT TERESA OF CALCUTTA
Profile and Biography
EARLY LIFE
Born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of
Macedonia
She was baptized the following day as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhui. Her parents, Nikola and
Dranafile Bojaxhui were of Albanian Descent. Her father worked as a construction
contractor and a trader of medicines. Nikola was a vocal proponent involved in the local
church as well as in city politics. In 1919, her father died due to unknown reasons while
there were speculations that he was poisoned by political enemies. Later, Agnes became
attached to her mother who instilled in her a deep commitment to charity.
by age 12, she was convinced that she should commit herself to religious life
in September 1928at age 18, she joinedInstitute of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
known as Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India.
She received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Therese of Lisieux. In
December of 1929
EDUCATION
Mother Teresa went to a convent-run primary school and then a state-run
secondary school. She used to sing solos in the local Sacred Heart choir and from
there she first felt a calling to religious life at the age of 12. Six years later, in
1928, an 18-year-old Agnes decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to
join the sisters of Loreto in Dublin. It was there that she took the name Sister
Mary Teresa after Saint Theresa of Liseux.
NUNHOOD
A year later, Sister Mary Teresa travelled to Darjeeling, India for the Novitiate
Period. In May 1931, she made her first profession of vows. Later, she went to
Calcutta, where she was assigned to teach at Saint Mary’s High School for Girls, a
school run by the Loreto sisters and dedicated to teaching girls from the city’s
poorest Bengali families. On May 24, 1937, she took her final profession of vows
to a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Later, she took on the title “Mother”
upon making her final vows and became Mother Teresa. She continued her
teaching and led them to a life of devotion to Christ.
Sister Teresa made her Final Profession of Vows
On May 24, 1937, becoming, as she said, the "spouse of Jesus" for "all eternity."
From that time on she was called Mother Teresa. She served there for nearly twenty
years and was appointed its headmistress in 1944
Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta and
taught at St. Mary’s School for girls.
From that time on she was called Mother Teresa. She continued teaching at St.
Mary’s and in 1944 became the school’s principal. A person of profound prayer and
deep love for her religious sisters and her students, Mother Teresa’s twenty years in
Loreto were filled with profound happiness. Noted for her charity, unselfishness and
courage, her capacity for hard work and a natural talent for organization, she lived
out her consecration to Jesus, in the midst of her companions, with fidelity and joy.
Call within a call. In 1946, during a train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling,
Mother Teresa received what she called, “the call within a call.” The Lord
asked her to begin a new religious community that would live and work
with the poorest of the poor.
In 1946 Sister Teresa experienced her “call within a call,” which she considered
divine inspiration to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. She then moved
into the slums she had observed while teaching. Municipal authorities, upon her
petition, gave her a pilgrim hostel, near the sacred temple of Kali, where she
founded her order in 1948. Sympathetic companions soon flocked to her aid.
Dispensaries and outdoor schools were organized.
She began missionary work with the poor in 1948.
Mother Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, spent several months in Patna to receive
basic medical training at Holy Family Hospital and ventured into the slums. She
founded a school in Motijhil, Calcutta, before she began tending to the poor and
hungry. At the beginning of 1949, Mother Teresa was joined in her effort by a group
of young women, and she laid the foundation for a new religious community helping
the "poorest among the poor".
Mother Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with
difficulty
Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the prime
minister. With no income, she begged for food and supplies and experienced doubt,
loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these
early months:
Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today, I learned a
good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I
walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body
and soul, looking for a home, food and health. Then, the comfort of Loreto [her former
congregation] came to tempt me. "You have only to say the word and all that will be yours
again", the Tempter kept on saying. ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire
to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.
Mother Teresa received Vatican permission for the diocesan congregation.
On 7 October 1950, Mother Teresa received Vatican permission for the
diocesan congregation, which would become the Missionaries of Charity,
which was a sisterhood dedicated to helping the poor.
In her words, it would care for "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled,
the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for
throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are
shunned by everyone"
Mother Teresa opened her first hospice with help from Calcutta officials
In 1952, Mother Teresa opened her first hospice with help from Calcutta officials.
She converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying,
free for the poor, and renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart.
Those brought to the home received medical attention and the opportunity to die
with dignity in accordance with their faith: Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus
received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received extreme unction.
"A beautiful death", Mother Teresa said, "is for people who lived like animals to
die like angels—loved and wanted."
Mother Teresa opened her first hospice with help from Calcutta officials
She opened a hospice for those with leprosy, calling it Shanti Nagar (City of Peace).
The Missionaries of Charity took in an increasing number of homeless children; in
1955, Mother Teresa opened Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the
Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.
The congregation began to attract recruits and donations
The congregation began to attract recruits and donations, and by the 1960s it had
opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses throughout India. Mother Teresa
then expanded the congregation abroad, opening a house in Venezuela in 1965 with
five sisters. Houses followed in Italy (Rome), Tanzania and Austria in 1968, and,
during the 1970s, the congregation opened houses and foundations in the United
States and dozens of countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Foundation of The Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963
The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative
branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were
enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers,
and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. Responding to requests by many priests, in
1981, Mother Teresa founded the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests and with
Joseph Langford founded the Missionaries of Charity Fathers in 1984 to combine the
vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the priesthood.
By 1997, the 13-member Calcutta congregation had grown to more than 4,000
sisters who managed orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers worldwide,
caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless
and victims of floods, epidemics and famine. By 2007, the Missionaries of Charity
numbered about 450 brothers and 5,000 sisters worldwide, operating 600
missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries
INTERNATIONAL CHARITY OF MOTHER TERESA
Mother Teresa said, "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By
faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my
heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus."
Fluent in five languages – Bengali, Albanian, Serbian, English and Hindi – she made
occasional trips outside India for humanitarian reasons.
Siege of Beirut in 1982
At the height of the Siege of Beirut in 1982, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children
trapped in a front-line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between
the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she
travelled through the war zone to the hospital to evacuate the young patients.
Eastern Europe experienced increased openness
When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, Mother
Teresa expanded her efforts to Communist countries which had rejected the
Missionaries of Charity. She began dozens of projects, undeterred by criticism of her
stands against abortion and divorce:
"No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own
work."
She visited Armenia after the 1988 earthquake and met with Soviet Premier Nikolai
Ryzhkov.
Assisted people in Ethiopia and earthquake victims in Armenia
Mother Teresa travelled to assist the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims
at Chernobyl and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991 she returned
to Albania for the first time, opening a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home
in Tirana.
By 1996, the Missionaries of Charity operated 517 missions in over 100 countries. The number
of sisters in the Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands, serving the "poorest
of the poor" in 450 centres worldwide. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United
States was established in the South Bronx area of New York City, and by 1984 the
congregation operated 19 establishments throughout the country.
Death and canonization
After several years of deteriorating health, including heart, lung and kidney
problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. Within two
years of her death, the process to declare her a saint was begun, and Pope John Paul
II issued a special dispensation to expedite the process of canonization. She was
beatified on October 19, 2003, reaching the ranks of the blessed in what was then
the shortest time in the history of the church. She was canonized by Pope Francis
I on September 4, 2016.
Miracles
To become a Saint, a person must have performed two miracles. Mother
Teresa performed two healing miracles in her lifetime.
- The first miracle she performed was in 1998. A woman travelled to a Missionaries of
Charity chapel and touched a medallion blessed by Teresa. She had a stomach
tumour but the medallion cured her. Doctors confirmed that the tumour
disappeared overnight.
- In a similar case, a man with a brain tumour recovered after touching a relic of
Mother Teresa. Before surgery, the man woke up from a coma and his tumour had
vanished.
