Mother Teresa

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, known around the world as Mother Teresa, was a Roman Catholic Religious Sister and missionary. She was born in Skopje Macedonia in 1910 with the original name of Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Wiki, 2014). At a young age she knew she had a calling to spread the love of Christ to the people. When she was eighteen she left her home to join the Sisters of Loreto (The Institute of the Blessed Mary Virgin). It was there that she obtained the name Sister Mary Teresa. On May 24, 1931, right before her first mission to India, she took her initial vows as a nun (people, n.d.).

Mother Teresa had traveled and helped many people throughout the entire world, but almost 69 years of her life was spent in India. Her need to help other people that lived outside of India led her to travel to far off places and during those travels she learned how to speak 5 different languages; English, Albanian, Serbo-Croat, Bengali, and Hindi (Feldman, 2009).

History/ Accomplishments

It wasn’t until 1948, after 17 years of teaching at a local school in Calcutta, she decided to leave the school and devote herself to working with those in need. Although she had no funds when starting out, she depended on Divine Providence and the goodness of mankind. Not only did the needed funds come to her through private and government funding, many volunteers soon followed her to help save others’ lives. (Oak, 2011)

On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa was given permission from the Holy See to start her own order “the diocesan congregation” which would work for those whom she described as "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers and all the people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone". This congregation soon became known as “The Missionaries of Charity” (Wiki, 2014).

The purpose and mission was to love and care for those that nobody else was prepared to look...