Mother Teresa

Blessed Mother Teresa led a remarkable life and left a very large “footprint” in the world. She is best known today for her work with the poor and sick in Calcutta, India. After deciding that she wanted to be a nun at age 18 she joined the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland moving from her birthplace, which is now present day Macedonia. When Mother Teresa made her final vows she chose her name in honor of Saint Theresa of Lisieux. The Sisters of Loreto sent her to Calcutta for training where she would live for the remainder of her life. In 1946 while traveling for a retreat, she received “a call within a call” from God. After this event she decided to give up everything she had, including the community of the Sisters, and go out into the slums and live in a shack to serve Christ among the “poorest of the poor.” Within a year of her work, that included teaching children basic hygiene and general care and help to the community, young women came to volunteer and others offered use of building, supplies, food, and clothes. This group of people became a congregation in 1950, and it began to rapidly expand all over the world. The Missionaries of Charity’s primary mission was to love and care people who no one else was looking after. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the prestigious award of the Nobel Peace Prize. After her death in 1997, Pope John Paul II ignored the five year waiting period to open her Cause of Canonization and her beatification was the shortest in modern history.

By living amongst the poor Mother Teresa was able to view and experience their lives first hand. Because of this, she spoke truly from the heart about the mission to care for the sick and the poor, which was ultimately the mission of God. Mother Teresa is no doubt a modern day prophet. She spoke both with her action and her words, showing the world what it meant to follow God’s Law. “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved...