Mother Teresa

She dedicated her life serving the poor. She loved the unloved, cared for the un-cared, helped the dying, the cripple, and the mentally ill. She served everyone with her love and the love of God. She touched the hearts of those who doubted her because of her love and commitment to God. Mother Teresa lived an extraordinary life.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, later named Mother Teresa, was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Yugoslavia. She was born into an Albanian Roman Catholic family.

There were three children, one boy and two girls. She was the youngest. She attended the government school. In her teens, Agnes became a member of a youth group in her local parish called Sodality. Through her involvement with their activities guided by Yugoslavian priests, Agnes became interested in missionaries in India. There, letters from Yugoslavian priests working in Bengal were read. Young Agnes was one of the Sodalists who volunteered for the Bengal Mission.

When she turned eighteen, she left home to join the Irish Loreto order, whose Sisters ran a mission in Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa's first assignment was teaching high school girls in Calcutta from 1929 to 1946. There she taught geography at the St. Mary's High School. For some years, she was a principal of the school and was also in charge of the Daughters of St. Anne, the Indian religious order attached to the Loreto Sisters.

By December 1, 1928 Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu had chosen the name of Sister Mary Teresa of the Child Christ after Teresa of Liseux. "On May 24, 1937, Sister Teresa committed herself to her vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience for life and in doing so became, as was then usual for Loreto nuns, 'Mother Teresa'" (Spink 17).

In 1946, she wanted to work directly with the poor. She applied for permission to go out and work among the poor in the slums of the city. "It was among these people that she felt a call to work, and to spend the rest of her life, in daily contact with them" (Spink 224). Her request to work with the poor was granted. Finally, she changed from the uniform of the Loreto order to the customary cheap Indian sari. Her work started after an intensive course in nursing.

In addition to the Sisters, Mother Teresa founded four other branches of the Missionaries of Charity family. "Their special dedication is to the poorest of the poor" (Mauggeridge 15). On March 25, 1963, the Archbishop of Calcutta blessed the beginning of an active branch of Brothers. The branch of the Sisters began in New York on June 25, 1976 and the Brothers were established in Rome on March 19, 1979. The Fathers were founded in the Bronx, New York on October 13, 1984.

With a rare combination of goodness and media savvy, Mother Teresa took advantage of her new-found recognition. She began giving speeches worldwide, helping to bring attention to the dilemma of the poor everywhere. In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and her position as the world's greatest champion of the downtrodden was firmly established.

After Mother Teresa received her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she presented her Nobel Lecture. She told everyone about her beliefs and told many stories about her experience throughout the world:

I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of 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 (Crimp125).

Mother Teresa's health problems became active in the '80s and '90s. In 1983 she visited Pope John Paul II and she suffered a heart attack. She began wearing a pacemaker in 1989 after having a fatal heart attack. The world prayed for Mother Teresa's recovery after suffering from a heart failure and malaria. While she was in the hospital, she wanted to have communion and wanted to go home.

She died shortly after her 87th birthday on September 5, 1997 when she collapsed at her Missionaries of Charity convent.