Mother Teresa

EARLY LIFE 

Agnes Bojaxhiu (later to be known as Mother Teresa) was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje (now the capital of the Republic of Macedonia), Ottoman Empire. 

Mother Teresa of Calcutta; 1986 . By © 1986 Túrelio 

Her father Nikollë Bojaxhiu was a merchant who was in sympathy with Albanian patriots and her housewife mother was named Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Bernai).

Agnes' parents had three children, and Teresa was youngest. The family was ethnically Albanian.

Nikolla and Dranafila Bojaxhiu, were Catholic, even though most Albanians are Muslim and the majority of their native Macedonia are Macedonian Orthodox.

Agnes was a member of the youth group in her local parish called Sodality.

Memorial House of Mother Teresa in her native Skopje

Her father, who was involved in Albanian-community politics in Macedonia, died in 1919 when Agnes was eight years old.

CALLING

At the age of 12 Agnes Bojaxhiu already knew she wanted to be a missionary and her desire increased when local Jesuits, sent on missions of mercy to India, wrote enthusiastic letters back home about happenings in Bengal.

Agnes left home in 1928 at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland, to learn English with the view of becoming a missionary; She never saw her mother or her sister again.

The following year the teenage Albanian arrived in India, where she joined the Loretto Convent in Darjiling in the lower Himalayas. There Agnes learnt Bengali and taught at St. Teresa's School near her convent.

Agnes took her first religious vows on May 24, 1931. She chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries; because a nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for its Spanish spelling (Teresa).

From 1929 to 1948 Sister Teresa taught geography and catechism at Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta (now Kolkata) becoming its principal in 1944.

On September 10, 1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling, Sister Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call", directing her to leave the convent and devote herself to the sick and impoverished. 

MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY  

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948 and two years later on October 7, 1950 Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity. 

Missionaries of Charity in traditional saris

Over the next decades Mother Teresa's organization established schools and opened centers to treat the blind, aged, lepers, disabled and dying throughout the world.

When Mother Teresa started out her Missionaries of Charity order she and her fellow sisters, inspired by her faith that God would provide, lived literally from hand to mouth as they shared with the destitute all they could cadge from well-wishers.

In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and announced that she planned to give the $192,000 prize away to build more relief centers for lepers and the destitute.

On January 25, 1980,  Mother Teresa was honored with India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

In 1982, Mother Teresa persuaded Israelis and Palestinians, who were in the midst of a skirmish, to cease fire long enough to rescue 37 mentally-handicapped patients from a besieged hospital in Beirut.

President Ronald Reagan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony on June 20, 1985 (see picture below).

In 1990 Mother Teresa resigned as head of order of Missionaries of Charity but later voted out of retirement by members and returned to her post.

By the time of her death, missions of Mother Teresa's order existed in more than 90 countries and had grown to include 40,000 nuns and many more lay workers and volunteers.

PERSONAL LIFE 

Mother Teresa was a wispy little woman with a crinkled, weather worn face and oversized hands.

Mother Teresa wore a blue edged coarse cotton white sari.

By Manfredo Ferrari - Own work, 

Mother Teresa was banned by the Albanian communist regime from returning to her home country. It was only in her late 70s she able to return to the land of her parents.

LAST YEARS, DEATH AND LEGACY

In 1983 Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989 she received a pacemaker. In 1991, after a bout of pneumonia while in Mexico, she had further heart problems.

On March 13, 1997 Mother Teresa resigned as head of the Missionaries of Charity, and she died of a heart attack on September 5, 1997.

Mother Teresa was granted a full state funeral by the Indian Government, an honor normally given to presidents and prime ministers, in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was widely considered a great tragedy within both secular and religious communities.

A "devil's advocate" is a person sanctioned by the Vatican to argue against the canonization of a potential new saint by pointing out their flaws and critically evaluating their miracles. The English journalist, literary critic and antitheist Christopher Hitchens served as a devil's advocate for Mother Teresa.

In 1999 Mother Teresa  headed Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century.

Albania's international airport, Tirana International Airport Nënë Tereza, is named after Mother Teresa. 

Tirana Aitport By Armand Habazaj 

Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa at a ceremony on September 4, 2016 in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Tens of thousands of people witnessed the ceremony, including 15 government delegations and 1,500 homeless people from across Italy.