Mother Teresa – Saint of Humanity and Service
Mother Teresa History
Mother Teresa is known worldwide for her compassion and love for the poor and needy. Her devotional work among the poor and dying of India won her the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. She is also known as the founder of the only Catholic religious order still growing in membership.
Mother Teresa was born on August 27, 1910, in Yugoslavia. Her first name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, her father was Dranafile Bojaxhiu, and her mother was Nikola. She had three siblings, and her father worked as a grocery seller. After her father’s death, Agnes’s life was happy and comfortable in her social life. Later the death of her father, life turned gloomy and upset, even though she didn’t lose her heart. Mother Teresa’s formal education started in Skopje public school, and interested in the religious activities of the Christians. There was a missionary working to spread their religious beliefs in foreign countries. Then she decided to work for poor people by joining the minister.
Mother Teresa’s Life as a Nun
One day at 12, Mother Teresa felt God was calling them to serve poor people. In her coming days also, deeply thought about the service and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. During her teenage, she was impressed by the social benefits of Jesuit missionaries. So at eighteen, Mother Teresa joined the Irish nuns’ community to work in Calcutta, West Bengal. She trained in social service and treating diseased people in Dublin, Ireland. In the sequence of incidents, she took her religious vows in 1928 and the final vows in 1937. At first, she served as a principal in a girls’ high school in Calcutta. However, in 1946 She received a last call from Jesus Christ to work now with the poor. After understanding His words, she decided to work as Jesus called, so she requested the Pope of Vatican City to permit her to wish. In 1948 Pope was allowed to start a new work under the guidance of the Archbishop of Calcutta.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
After she got permission from the Pope of Vatican City, she took medical training in Patna with the American Medical Missionary Sisters. Later, she grabbed the unschooled children from slum areas in Kolkatta and started to teach them to educate in various subjects. Hence, her service attracted many wealthy people and gave financial support to the works of Mother Theresa. In 1950 her group Missionaries of Charity was recognized as a religious community. Those who joined this group should take the four vows of poverty, obedience, chastity and free service to the poorest.
In 1957 she started another service program for lepers and concentrated on children’s education. So Teresa began at nine elementary schools in Calcutta and opened many homes for orphans and abandoned children. The service spreads to nearly twenty-two cities in India. Annai Therasa also visited many other countries and began new foundations.
Mother Teresa Achievements
The group of charities expanded their services throughout the 1970s. During this period, they opened new missions in America, Jordan, England and many other countries. In 1970 she got Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. By 1979 Sisters of Charity she had more than two hundred operations in twenty-five countries worldwide. In the same year, Mother Theresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Even the Indian Government awarded her with “Bharata Ratna” and honoured her by giving her Indian citizenship.
Saint Mother Teresa’s Death
In 1983 she suffered a heart attack during the visit of Pope John Paul II to India. Again in 1989, she faced a fatal heart attack and began wearing a pacemaker, which regulates the heartbeat. In March 1997, Sister Nirmala was announced as the head of the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa withdrew her duties and continued in an advisory role to Sister Nirmala due to her health problems. Finally, on September 5, 1997, at 87, Mother Teresa went into a deep sleep due to a heart attack. Then the whole of the world immerses in the grief of her loss.