Mother Teresa

1. Born August 26, 1910,Died September 5, 1997,Achievements Started Missionaries of Charity in 1950; received Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979; received Bharat Ratna in 1980.Mother Teresa was one of the great servants of humanity. She was an Albanian Catholic nun who came to India and founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. Later on Mother Teresa attained Indian citizenship. Her selfless work among the poverty-stricken people of Kolkata (Cal .....

Called to Religious Life

2. At 18, Gonxha decided to follow the path that seems to have been unconsciously unfolding throughout her life. She chose the Loreto Sisters of Dublin, missionaries and educators founded in the 17th century to educate young girls.In 1928, the future Mother Teresa began her religious life in Ireland, far from her family and the life she'd known, never seeing her mother again in this life, speaking a language few understood. During this period a sis .....

The Streets of Calcutta

3. During the next two years, Teresa pursued every avenue to follow what she never doubted was the direction God was pointing her. She was to give up even Loreto where I was very happy and to go out in the streets. I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.Technicalities and practicalities abounded. She had to be released formally, not from her perpetual vows, but from living within .....

A Movement Begins

4. Teresa was not alone for long. Within a year, she found more help than she anticipated. Many seemed to have been waiting for her example to open their own floodgates of charity and compassion. Young women came to volunteer their services and later became the core of her Missionaries of Charity. Others offered food, clothing, the use of buildings, medical supplies and money. As support and assistance mushroomed, more and more services became poss .....

The Early Years

5. Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, in the former Yugoslavia, she was the youngest of three children. In her teens, Agnes became a member of a youth group in her local pairsh called Sodality. Through her involvement with their activities guided by a Jesuit priest, Agnes became interested in missionaries. At age 17, she responded to her first call of a vocation as a Catholic missionary nun. She joined an Irish ord .....

A vocation of service

6. In 1952 the first Home for the Dying was opened in space made available by the City of Calcutta. Over the years, Mother Teresa?s Missionaries of Charity grew from 12 to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. Mother Teresa created many homes for the dying and the unwanted from Calcutta to New York to Albania. She was one of the pioneers of establishing homes for AIDS victims. For more than 45 years, Mother Ter .....

Her Words

7. A clean heart is a free heart. A free heart can love Christ with an undivided love in chastity, convinced that nothing and nobody will separate it from his love. Purity, chastity, and virginity created a special beauty in Mary that attracted God?s attention. He showed his great love for the world by giving Jesus to her.There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to .....

Reflections

8. "I know that I join countless others across the world in giving thanks to God for the many contributions Mother Teresa has made to the Church and to the human family. Mother Teresa spent her life with the Lord, especially serving Him in the poor. She must be especially happy to meet Him now face to face. Her life?s work is assured through her sisters, the Missionaries of Charity, to whom I offer my deepest sympathy ? especially to the sisters who .....

Birth and Childhood

9. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, now known as Mother Teresa, was the third and final child born to her Albanian Catholic parents, Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, in the city of Skopje (a predominantly Muslim city in the Balkans). Nikola was a self-made, successful businessman and Dranafile stayed home to take care of the children.When Mother Teresa was about eight years old, her father died unexpectedly. The Bojaxhiu family was devastated. After a period o .....

The Call

10. Both before Nikola's death and especially after it, the Bojaxhiu family held tightly to their religious beliefs. The family prayed daily and went on pilgrimages annually. When Mother Teresa was 12 years old, she began to feel called to serve God as a nun. Deciding to become a nun was a very difficult decision. Becoming a nun not only meant giving up the chance to marry and have children, it also meant giving up all her worldly possessions and he .....

Becoming a Nun

11. It took more than two years to become a Loreto nun. After spending six weeks in Ireland learning the history of the Loreto order and to study English, Mother Teresa then traveled to India, where she arrived on January 6, 1929. After two years as a novice, Mother Teresa took her first vows as a Loreto nun on May 24, 1931.As a new Loreto nun, Mother Teresa (known then only as Sister Teresa, a name she chose after St. Teresa of Lisieux) settled in .....

A Call Within a Call

12. For nine years, Mother Teresa continued as the principal of St. Mary's. Then on September 10, 1946, a day now annually celebrated as Inspiration Day, Mother Teresa received what she described as a call within a call. She had been traveling on a train to Darjeeling when she received an inspiration, a message that told her to leave the convent and help the poor by living among them. For two years Mother Teresa patiently petitioned her superiors fo .....

Founding the Missionaries of Charity

13. Mother Teresa started with what she knew. After walking around the slums for a while, she found some small children and began to teach them. She had no classroom, no desks, no chalkboard, and no paper, so she picked up a stick and began drawing letters in the dirt. Class had begun. Soon after, Mother Teresa found a small hut that she rented and turned it into a classroom. Mother Teresa also visited the children's families and others in the area, .....

Helping the Sick the Dying the Orphaned and the Lepers

14. There were literally millions of people in need in India. Droughts, the caste system, India's independence, and partition all contributed to the masses of people that lived on the streets. India's government was trying, but they could not handle the overwhelming multitudes that needed help. While the hospitals were overflowing with patients that had a chance to survive, Mother Teresa opened a home for the dying, called Nirmal Hriday (Place of th .....

International Recognition

15. Just before the Missionaries of Charity celebrated its 10th anniversary, they were given permission to establish houses outside of Calcutta, but still within India. Almost immediately, houses were established in Delhi, Ranchi, and Jhansi; more soon followed. For their 15th anniversary, the Missionaries of Charity was given permission to establish houses outside of India. The first house was established in Venezuela in 1965. Soon there were Missi .....

Controversy

16. With international recognition also came critique. Some people complained that the houses for the sick and dying were not sanitary, that those treating the sick were not properly trained in medicine, that Mother Teresa was more interested in helping the dying go to God than in potentially helping cure them. Others claimed that she helped people just so she could convert them to Christianity.Mother Teresa also caused much controversy when she ope .....

Old and Frail

17. Despite the controversy, Mother Teresa continued to be an advocate for those in need. In the 1980s, Mother Teresa, already in her 70s, opened Gift of Love homes in New York, San Francisco, Denver, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for AIDS sufferers. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, Mother Teresa's health deteriorated, but she still traveled the world, spreading her message. When Mother Teresa, age 87, died of heart failure on September 5, 1997, .....

Mother Teresa and the Nobel Peace Prize

18. Mother Teresa is a household name for her good works, but many people don?t know much about her beyond ?nun who helped the poor.? On the anniversary of her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, here are 20 facts about Mother Teresa.She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 in Albania, to a financially comfortable family ? they lived in one of the two houses they owned. Her father died when she was 8 years old, which ended her family?s financial s .....

Major Accomplishments of Mother Teresa

19. In 1946, Mother Teresa received a divine message, possibly an intuition, after which she decided to devote her life to the betterment of society. In 1948, she started working with the poor. She soon became an Indian citizen and toured to different parts of India to uplift the downtrodden. In 1950, she was granted permission to establish the diocesan congregation, which would work for those, whom she described as the hungry, the naked, the homeles .....

Awards and Achievements

20. For her unwavering commitment and unflinching love and compassion that she devoutly shared, the Government of India honoured her with Padma Shri, Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding and Bharat Ratna, India?s highest civilian award.In 1962, she was honoured with Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, for her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she led a new congregation.In 1 .....

Trivia

21. Known the world over as Mother Teresa, she however was not baptized with the same name. Her christened name is different from what she is known as. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta with the objective of serving the poorest of the poor. She aimed to make life beautiful for the unwanted, unloved and uncared lot. .....

Her International Pursuits

22. The congregation, which was limited to India, opened its first house outside India in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters. However, this was just the beginning, as many more houses came up in Rome, Tanzania and Austria. By 1970s, the order had reached several countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and United States.In 1982, Mother Teresa rescued almost 37 children who were trapped in a front line hospital in Beirut. With the help of a few Red Cross vo .....

Mother Teresa film in the works

23. Keir Pearson, who received an Oscar nomination for Hotel Rwanda, is set to write the screenplay for I Thirst, the first authorised biopic of the late religious sister. Keir's presentation and his Oscar-nominated script of Hotel Rwanda and his sensitive script for Chavez made him the perfect choice, producer Tony Krantz said. advertisement I Thirst is the first and only authorised film about the life of Mother Teresa on the big screen. We couldn't .....

Educational Foundation

24. Following the lines enshrined in the doctrines of Mother Teresa "Remove the educational poverty among the student community?" Our Foundation provides financial assistance to academically proficient but economically poor students to pursue higher studies after completing their high school education as day scholars. Both boys and girls studying in medical, engineering, arts & sciences, paramedical and other courses benefit under this program. These .....

Children Foundation

25. Begging letters from the Mother Teresa Children's Foundation claim to be honoring Mother Teresa's name by independently helping children all over the world. But check the small print before sending a donation - in tiny print this lot admit to having no connection to Mother Teresa or the good cause she founded, The Missionaries of Charity. Although a registered UK charity, none of the trustees of the Mother Teresa Children's Foundation live in Bri .....

Death and Legacy

26. After several years of deteriorating health in which she suffered from heart, lung and kidney problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87. Since her death, Mother Teresa has remained in the public spotlight. In particular, the publication of her private correspondence in 2003 caused a wholesale re-evaluation of her life by revealing the crisis of faith she suffered for most of the last 50 years of her life. In one despairin .....