Essays

Mother Teresa was born Agnes GonxhaBojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. At a mere go of twelve, she felt strongly the call of God.

She knew she had to be a missionary to spread the love of Christ and left home at eighteen to serve the Almighty and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India.

She dedicated every day of her adult life caring for "The dying, the cripple, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved" and she loved every minute of it because she was loving, she was cleaning, feeding "Jesus in disguise".

From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta.

 On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after.

In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI. They provide effective help to the poorest of the poor in a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and they undertake relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes such as floods, epidemics, and famine, and for refugees.

The order also has houses in North America, Europe and Australia, where they take care of the shut-ins, alcoholics, homeless, and AIDS sufferers.

She also received the Balzan Prize (1979) and the Templeton and Magsaysay awards.