MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA

Mother Teresa was born in Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, capital of Macedonia on August 26, 1910. Her family was of Albania descent. At the age of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God. She knew she had to be missionary to spread the love of Christ. At the age of eighteen she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto an Ireland, there she received the name of Sister Teresa. In the month of December she started the trip to India, arriving January 6, 1929. Later she professed her vows in May 1931. Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto community in Calcutta where she taught at the St. Mary Girls School. In 1937 Sister Teresa made her perpetual profession and from that moment her name was Mother Teresa. Continued teaching St. Mary and became the centre’s director in 1944. In 1946 she founded the religious congregation, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. In 1948 she walked through the blue and white doors of her beloved convent to enter the world of the poor. After a short course with the medical missionary sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta on December 21st, she went to the poor neighbourhoods for the first time. She visited families; she washed wounds for some children etc. After a few months her former students began to join her. In 1950 the new congregation of Missionaries of Charity was officially established in the archdiocese of Calcutta. At the beginning of the 1960, Mother Teresa began to send her sisters to other parts of India. Later they opened a house in Venezuela, Rome, Tanzania and in every continent. In 1980 she opened houses in Albania and Cuba.

To better respond to the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded the Missionary Brothers of Charity in 1963. During these years of rapid development, the world began to notice Mother Teresa and the work that she had begun. Numerous awards were given to her, the most notorious was the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Her whole life and work as a testimony of he joy of loving, of the value of small things done with fidelity and love, but the heroic value came to light only after death.

During the last years of her life, although she had health problems, Mother Teresa continued to direct her institute and respond to needs of the poor and the church.

On September 5th, 1977, the life of Mother Teresa came to an end and her grave became a place of pilgrimage and player for people of faith.

La Mother Teresa was beatified by Saint John Paul II on October 19th, 2003. And she was canonized 13 years later by Pope Francis in Saint Peter’s Square on September 4th, 2016.

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