A Call Within a Call

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 for permission to leave the convent in order to follow her call. It was a long and frustrating process. To her superiors, it seemed dangerous and futile to send a single woman out into the slums of Kolkata. However, in the end, Mother Teresa was granted permission to leave the convent for one year to help the poorest of the poor.

In preparation for leaving the convent, Mother Teresa purchased three cheap, white, cotton saris, each one lined with three blue stripes along its edge. (This later became the uniform for the nuns at Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.) After 20 years with the Loreto order, Mother Teresa left the convent on August 16, 1948.Rather than going directly to the slums, Mother Teresa first spent several weeks in Patna with the Medical Mission Sisters to obtain some basic medical knowledge. Having learned the basics, 38-year-old Mother Teresa felt ready to venture out into the slums in December of 1948.