At the age of 12, she decided that she wanted to be a missionary and spread the love of Christ. At the age of 18, she left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India.
On May 24, , she took her initial vows as a nun. From to , Mother Teresa taught geography and catechism at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. However, the prevailing poverty in Calcutta had a deep impact on Mother Teresa's mind and in , she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. After a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, she returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor.
She started an open-air school for homeless children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and she received financial support from church organizations and the municipal authorities.
On October 7, , Mother Teresa received permission from the Vatican to start her own order. Vatican originally labeled the order as the Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, and it later came to be known as the "Missionaries of Charity. From to Mother Teresa taught at St. Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, and financial support was also forthcoming.
This made it possible for her to extend the scope of her work. Today the order comprises Active and Contemplative branches of Sisters and Brothers in many countries. In both the Contemplative branch of the Sisters and the Active branch of the Brothers was founded. In the Contemplative branch of the Brothers was added, and in the Priest branch was established. Benefactors regularly would arrive to support works in progress or to stimulate the Sisters to open new ventures.
Mother Teresa received increasing attention in the media, especially through a British Broadcasting Corporation special interview that Malcolm Muggeridge conducted with her in London in In , on the occasion of visiting some of her sisters in London, she went to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to pray with the Irish women for peace and to meet with lan Paisley, a militant Protestant leader.
In the same year she opened a home in Bangladesh for women raped by Pakistani soldiers in the conflicts of that time. By her groups had more than different operations in over 25 countries around the world, with dozens more ventures on the horizon. In she persuaded President Fidel Castro to allow a mission in Cuba. The hallmark of all of Mother Teresa's works—from shelters for the dying to orphanages and homes for the mentally ill—continued to be service to the very poor. In she returned home to Albania and opened a home in Tirana, the capital.
At this time, there were homes operating in India. Later in , plans materialized to open homes in China. Despite the appeal of this saintly work, all commentators remarked that Mother Teresa herself was the most important reason for the growth of her order and the fame that came to it.
Muggeridge was struck by her pleasant directness and by the otherworldly character of her values. He saw her as having her feet completely on the ground, yet she seemed almost unable to comprehend his suggestion meant as an interviewer's controversial prod that trying to save a few of India's abandoned children was almost meaningless, in the face of the hordes whom no one was helping.
He realized that Mother Teresa had virtually no understanding of a cynical or godless point of view that could consider any human being less than absolutely valuable. Another British interviewer, Polly Toynbee, was especially struck by Mother Teresa's lack of rage or indignation. Unlike many "social critics, " she did not find it necessary to attack the economic or political structures of the cultures that were producing the abjectly poor people she was serving.
For her the primary rule was a constant love, and when social critics or religious reformers chose to vent anger at the evils of structures underlying poverty and suffering, that was between them and God.
Indeed, in later interviews Mother Teresa continued to strike an apolitical pose, refusing to take a stand on anything other than strictly religious matters.
One sensed that to her mind politics, economics, and other this-worldly matters were other people's business. The business given by God to her and her group was simply serving the very poor with as much love and skill as they could muster. In the s and s Mother Teresa's health problems became a concern. Mother Teresa was born on August 26, , in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The following day, she was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu.
The Bojaxhius were a devoutly Catholic family, and Nikola was deeply involved in the local church as well as in city politics as a vocal proponent of Albanian independence. In , when Mother Teresa — then Agnes — was only eight years old, her father suddenly fell ill and died. While the cause of his death remains unknown, many have speculated that political enemies poisoned him. In the aftermath of her father's death, Agnes became extraordinarily close to her mother, a pious and compassionate woman who instilled in her daughter a deep commitment to charity.
Although by no means wealthy, Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family. When Agnes asked who the people eating with them were, her mother uniformly responded, "Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people. Agnes attended a convent-run primary school and then a state-run secondary school.
As a girl, she sang in the local Sacred Heart choir and was often asked to sing solos. The congregation made an annual pilgrimage to the Church of the Black Madonna in Letnice, and it was on one such trip at the age of 12 that she first felt a calling to religious life. Six years later, in , an year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto in Dublin.
Afterward, she was sent to Calcutta, where she was assigned to teach at Saint Mary's High School for Girls, a school run by the Loreto Sisters and dedicated to teaching girls from the city's poorest Bengali families. Sister Teresa learned to speak both Bengali and Hindi fluently as she taught geography and history and dedicated herself to alleviating the girls' poverty through education. On May 24, , she took her Final Profession of Vows to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience.
As was the custom for Loreto nuns, she took on the title of "Mother" upon making her final vows and thus became known as Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa continued to teach at Saint Mary's, and in she became the school's principal. Through her kindness, generosity and unfailing commitment to her students' education, she sought to lead them to a life of devotion to Christ.
On September 10, , Mother Teresa experienced a second calling, the "call within a call" that would forever transform her life.
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