Mother Teresa was the name given to Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu MC, an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity. She was born Anjez Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Albania on August 26, 1910, and died on September 5, 1997. When she was 18 years old, she migrated to Ireland and eventually to India, where she spent the majority of her life. She was born in Skopje, which was formerly a part of the Ottoman Empire.
The Catholic Church declared her Saint Teresa of Calcutta on September 4, 2016, making her a saint. Her feast day is on September 5, which commemorates her passing.
As of 2012, Mother Teresa formed the religious order known as the Missionaries of Charity, which now has over 4,500 nuns spread over 133 nations. The church oversees homes for those with leprosy, TB, and HIV/AIDS who are near death. Along with orphanages and schools, the group also manages mobile clinics, soup kitchens, dispensaries, children’s and family counseling programs, and dispensaries.
Members profess a fourth vow in addition to their chastity, poverty, and obedience vows, which is to provide “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”
Numerous awards, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, were given to Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa was a divisive figure both during her life and after her passing. She was adored by many for her philanthropic work but criticized for her stances on abortion and contraception as well as the subpar circumstances at her homes for the terminally ill.
She was the topic of numerous additional works in addition to her authorized biography, which was authored by Navin Chawla and released in 1992. Mother Teresa and Saint Francis Xavier were designated co-patrons of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta on September 6, 2017.
Volunteers of Charity
When Teresa traveled by rail from Calcutta to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling on September 10, 1946, for her annual retreat, she experienced what she subsequently called “The call inside of the call.” I was forced to leave the convent and live among the poor while offering assistance.
It was a directive. Failure would have been a betrayal of faith. Later, Joseph Langford noted, “Sister Teresa had just become Mother Teresa, though no one realized it at the time.
In 1948, she started doing missionary work among the underprivileged, trading in her customary Loreto uniform for a straightforward, white cotton sari with a blue border. Mother Teresa took the Indian citizenship, moved into the slums, and spent time in Patna studying medicine at Holy Family Hospital. She founded a school in Motijhil, Calcutta, before beginning to assist the hungry and impoverished.
A group of young ladies joined Mother Teresa
A group of young ladies joined Mother Teresa in her mission to help the “poorest among the poor” in the beginning of 1949, and she set the groundwork for a new religious community.
Mother Teresa was granted permission by the Vatican to create the diocesan congregation that would later become the Missionaries of Charity on October 7, 1950. She described it as providing care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, and uncared for People who are disregarded by everyone in society because they have harmed it.
With assistance from Calcutta officials, Mother Teresa established her first hospice in 1952. She changed the name of an abandoned Hindu temple to Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday), and turned it into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, which was free for the poor. People who were brought to the facility were given medical care and the chance to pass away in accordance with their religious beliefs.
For example, Muslims were read passages from the Quran, Hindus were given Ganges water, and Catholics were given intense unction. Mother Teresa once observed that a “beautiful death” occurs when someone who lives like an animal passes away feeling loved and desired.
Nobel Prize for Peace
Mother Teresa’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. In 1979, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize “for work done in the fight to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace.” She declined the customary ceremonial feast for laureates, requesting that its $192,000 cost be donated to the underprivileged in India, and stating that earthly honors were meaningful only if they enabled her to aid the world’s destitute.
What can we do to further the cause of world peace? was posed to Mother Teresa when she accepted the award. She replied, “Go home and love your family.” In her Nobel talk, she expanded on this issue by stating: “I found the poverty of the West to be so much more difficult to remove—across the world, not only in the impoverished countries.
When I pick up a hungry person off the street and give him a dish of rice and some bread, I am done with him. That hunger is no longer there. But poverty is so hurtful and so great for a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, or afraid, who has been cast out of society. I find that extremely tough.
