Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa's life serves as a model of spiritual and religious development, and represents well how giving to others allows some to transcend self and achieve a heightened level of religious and/or spiritual development. Her life has had an immense impact on the spiritual and religious development of thousands of people around the world.

Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. Her birth name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was raised Catholic by parents who cared for the poor and [Page 299]the less fortunate. Her family's generosity was to have a significant impact on her life. She became engaged in religious communities as a teenager, becoming a member of Sodality, a youth group in her local parish. Her participation in this group and her interactions with Jesuits sparked an interest in missionary work. By age 17, Agnes was called to her first vocation as a Catholic nun, joining the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish order that did a significant amount of work in India. It was when she took her vows as a Sister of Loreto that young Agnes took the name Teresa after Saint Thérèse of Avila. She chose the Sisters of Loreto because of their vocation to provide education for girls.

Mother Teresa was sent to India where she taught geography and catechism in a local Catholic high school. By the time she was in her early forties, she became principal of this school. During her time as principal, Teresa caught tuberculosis and was sent away for treatment. On a train ride to Darjeeling, where she was to recuperate, Mother Teresa received her calling to leave the convent and dedicate her life to the extreme poor. She soon came across a woman dying in the street directly in front of a hospital. She stayed with the woman until she died and from then on dedicated her life to serving the poorest of the poor. She received permission from the Pope via the Archbishop of Calcutta to live as an independent nun. After a short training period with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, she returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Her work with the extreme poor started in a slum school. She would also visit sick people at their homes to nurse them. Shortly after starting this work, former students of hers joined her in dedicating their lives to caring for the destitute and sick, particularly those who were turned away by the hospitals. She soon received Vatican permission to start her own order whose mission was to serve “the crippled, the blind, the lepers, 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.” This group of missionaries was recognized as the Missionaries of Charity by the Calcutta Diocese. To identify herself with the poor she wore a plain white sari with a blue border and a simple cross pinned to her left shoulder.

After almost 50 years of work, the Missionaries of Charity had grown from 12 sisters in India to over 3,000 in 517 missions throughout 100 countries around the world. Mother Teresa's work inspired other Catholics to affiliate themselves with her order. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non Catholics began to enroll themselves in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests. Mother Teresa's goodness affected thousands of people. She was one of the first leading figures to advocate and care for victims of leprosy and HIV/AIDs.

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