Essays

the world today. She was born in 1910 in Macedonia with the name Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was born into a family of deeply religious Catholics. Agnes felt she got the calling to work for God at the young age of fourteen. She joined the Loreto order and went to Bengal,

India, to start her studies. In 1937, Agnes took her final vows to become a nun and has done much great work in the world since. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on August 27, 1910 to Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia. Drana and Nikola were Albanian and both were very deeply religious Roman Catholics. Nikola was a popular merchant and a partner to an Italian merchant. He owned several houses and was a member of the Skopje town council.

Whenever Agnes' father would return from a trip, he would always bring his children presents. Also, he promoted his daughters' education, which was uncommon in that time period. Nikola also was involved in an underground organization that worked to gain independence for the Albanians from the Ottoman Turks, who ruled Macedonia around the time Agnes was born. Agnes grew up around much fighting. When she was born, there were Albanian protests against the Turkish government. When she was two, she witnessed the First Balkan War. In that war, the Ottomans were defeated, but Macedonia was divided among the conquerors: Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegero and Serbia. The city of Skopje was distributed to Serbia. Albania received its independence in 1912, but Nikola continued his nationalist work. He joined a movement determined to incorporate Serbia into the Albanian nation.

In 1914, when Agnes was only four years old. World War I began. In 1918, her father was killed. Some people believe that he was poisoned by enemies. Many people mourned his death because of his kindness and generosity. Drana Bojaxhiu and the family were left with little money and no means of income. Even though she had to work extra hard to make ends meet, Drana still found time and money to give to the lonely. When Agnes was young, she used to go on trips with her mother to visit the elderly, sick and the poor. It is said that their mother's generosity may have had the greatest influence on Agnes, her sister and her brother.

Agnes was the youngest of the three children. Agnes learned her faith from her mother. Drana passed down to her children many values. Agnes had thought about being a teacher when she was younger, but at the age of twelve, she knew she wanted to lead a religious life. When Agnes was .only fourteen, she knew she wanted to be a missionary nun. At age eighteen, Agnes joined the Loreto order of nuns. In September of 1928, she left her family and everything she knew to serve God at the Loreto Abbey in Dublin Ireland. There, she learned how to speak English. In November, she went to India to teach English in an Indian school. In 1929, Agnes started her novitiate in an Abbey in Darjeeling in the foothills of the Himalayas. A novitiate is the time a nun spends studying, praying and contemplating before she takes her vows.

On May 24, 1931,Agnes took her first vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. She took her name after St. Therese, the patron saint of missionaries. On May 14,1937, Teresa took her final vows, promising to serve God for the rest of her life. Teresa eventually became the principal of Loreto Entally, a school in entally (a district of Calcutta) where she taught history and geography. Every day, Teresa would look out of the convent to the streets of Calcutta. She longed to help the starving and dying people on the streets. She wasn't allowed to because the Loreto order of nuns had a rule that the nuns couldn't leave the convent unless they were seriously ill. In August, 1946, Sister Teresa could stand it no longer. A four-day riot broke out in Calcutta between the Muslims and the Hindus. Because of this, food delivery was stopped. Sister-Teresa went out to find food for her hundreds of students. In the riot, 5000 Calcutta people were killed and an additional 15000 were injured. She met some soldiers who gave her some bags of food. They warned her to stay off the streets, but she would soon experience another call from God.

On September 10, 1946, Sister Teresa experienced a call on an annual retreat. She was convinced that God wanted her to reach out to the poor. She said, "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail it would have been to break the faith." In 1947, Sister Teresa was granted permission to leave the Loreto order of nuns.

On August 16,1948, Sister Teresa set out on the dirty streets of Calcutta wearing a simple cotton sari decorated with a blue border. Eventually, her organization would adopt this outfit as their habit. Before she went out to the slums of

Calcutta, she went to Patna, a city 250 miles from Calcutta, to learn medical skills from Mother Anna Dengel. In Patna, the Medical Missionary Sisters took Sister Teresa in immediately and took her with them when they went to the houses of sick and dying people and local hospitals. On December 21, 1948, Sister Teresa finally set out on the streets of Calcutta to start her mission from God. She walked out into the city with a packed lunch, but nothing else. She had no money, materials or companions. The first place Sister Teresa decided to go was the slum that she could see from outside her window while teaching in the Loreto convent called Motijhil. She decided to start a school there. On the first day, five children showed up for class. There were no desks, books or chalkboards, but Sister Teresa still managed to teach. She started by teaching the alphabet. Soon, the number of students was almost forty.

In March 1949, Sister Teresa received a visitor at St. Joseph's. It was one other students from Entally. She had come because she could not forget her kind and generous teacher and principal and wanted to join Sister Teresa work for the poor of Calcutta. Also in 1949, Sister Teresa decided to become an Indian citizen, demonstrating her dedication to Calcutta's poor. On October 7, 1950, Cardinal Pietro Fumosoni-Biondi, head of the office for the Propagation of the Faith, sanctioned Sister Teresa's order, making her Mother Teresa. The new order was called the Missionaries .of Charity. It grew steadily in number, while helping the poorest of the poor. Mother Teresa encouraged all of the nuns to treat all the poor like a gift from God. She made sure that they always treated the patients with respect, warmth and kindness. By the middle of 1953, the Missionaries of Charities moved to a new residence that was big enough to house the growing number of nuns joining. Mother Teresa refused to have the name Reverend Mother Teresa because she would never set herself above anyone else.

Each morning, Mother Teresa and the nuns would search the streets for dying people.

Mother Teresa not only had a compassion for the poor and dying, but also for the victims of leprosy. In 1957, about 30,000 lepers lived in Calcutta. Most of them were cast out from society and even their families. They were unable to find an employer who would hire them. Mother Teresa found yet another group of people that n-eeded compassion, the lepers, and she was willing to give it. She was determined to find medical care for them. The Missionaries of Charity set up many clinics where people could go to get medicine, disinfectant, bandages and other necessary supplies.

In the early 1960s, the Missionaries of Charity started forming groups that would travel to different parts of India. Homes were set up in Delhi, Jhansi, Agra, Patna and other places. In February of 1965, the Missionaries of Charity had been granted permission to work outside of India by the Pope because of the Second Vatican Council. This meant that Mother Teresa, with her 300 sisters,, could help all the poor of the world. In 1968, Mother Teresa was given a special request from the Pope. Pope Paul VI requested that Mother Teresa open a house in Rome. In 1969, Mother Teresa, with help from Ann Blaikie, formed the International Association of the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa for lay people who wanted to help out in her organization. By 1985, there were over 2,600 members of the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers.

In October of 1971, Mother Teresa was given the Joseph R Kennedy Foundation Award by the Kennedy family. She was presented with a check for $12,000. She put the money straight into a fund for the disabled and retarded children. In 1973, Mother Teresa was given the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. In the years to follow, Mother Teresa built many more houses for the poor and needy. She also travelled around the world and spoke to many people. On December 9, 1979, Mother Teresa was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in a glorious atmosphere of beautiful flowers and cheering people. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan awarded Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mother Teresa died of cardiac arrest on the morning of September 5,1997 at the age of 87. Many people attended her funeral to bid her farewell and to pray for her. Mother Teresa was a wonderful woman. She gave everything she had to serve God and the people of the world. She will be remembered forever for her contributions to the poor and the homeless. In a world so hateful and dishonest, a person like Mother Teresa is a rare occurrence.