Historical Figure
Mother Teresa
1910–1997
Albanian-Indian Catholic saint (1910–1997)
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Biography
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and a Catholic saint. Born in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, she was raised in a devoutly Catholic family. At the age of 18, she moved to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto and later to India, where she lived most of her life and carried out her missionary work. On 4 September 2016, she was canonised by the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. The anniversary of her death, 5 September, is now observed as her feast day.
In Their Own Words (5)
We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if the drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of the missing drop.
As quoted in Mother Teresa's Reaching Out In Love - Stories told by Mother Teresa, Compiled and Edited by Edward Le Joly and Jaya Chaliha, Barnes & Noble, 2002, p. 122 , 2002
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa Reflects on Working Toward Peace, (essay, Santa Clara University, retrieved August 2012). , 2012
I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No. I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
In: , Mother Teresa of Calcutta, A Gift For God: Prayers and Meditations, New York: Harper & Row, 1975. p. 61; Cited in: M. Dhavamony. "Mother Teresa's mission of love for the poor" in: Studia missionalia, Vol 39. (1990), p. 137 , 1990
Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves but does not speak.
Letter to Michael van der Peet (September 1979), quoted in "Mother Teresa Did Not Feel Christ's Presence for Last Half of Her Life, Letters Reveal", Fox News (24 August 2007) , 1979
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
As quoted by Malcolm Muggeridge in Something Beautiful for God (1971) , 1971
Timeline
The story of Mother Teresa, told in moments.
Born Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Ottoman Empire. Her name means "flower bud" in Albanian. She's the youngest of three children. Her father, a politically active merchant, will be dead by the time she's eight. Probably poisoned.
Leaves home at 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland. She never sees her mother or sister again. Both die under communist rule in Albania while she begs foreign embassies for a reunion that never comes.
On a train to Darjeeling, she hears what she calls "the call within the call." Leave the convent. Help the poor. Live among them. "It was an order," she says later. "To fail would have been to break the faith."
Founds the Missionaries of Charity with 13 members. She converts an abandoned Hindu temple into her first hospice, Kalighat. Muslims read the Quran there. Hindus receive water from the Ganges. Catholics get last rites. Everyone gets to die inside, off the street.
Wins the Nobel Peace Prize. She asks that the banquet be canceled and the $192,000 budget given to the poor. By now the Missionaries of Charity operate in dozens of countries. She speaks five languages and has a diplomatic passport from India.
Brokers a temporary ceasefire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas during the siege of Beirut. Walks through the war zone with Red Cross workers. Evacuates 37 children from a front-line hospital.
Dies in Calcutta at 87. India gives her a state funeral. By then her congregation has grown from 13 to over 4,000 sisters running 600 missions in 120 countries. Critics say her clinics lack proper medical care. She'd say the point was never the medicine.
Canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta by Pope Francis. The anniversary of her death, September 5, becomes her feast day. The white sari with the blue border is now one of the most recognized garments on earth.
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