Mother Teresa--biography

When looking at the latter half of the twentieth century, Mother Teresa is certainly among the most well-known and highly respected women in the world. Born in Yugoslavia in 1910, Mother Teresa was a humanitarian who graciously devoted her life to looking after the poor, the sick, the dying and the outcasts of our society. Her accomplishments were both extraordinary and selfless—she founded her own Order (Missionaries of Charity), established a home for the dying, as well a leper colony, authored books, and in 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Although Mother Teresa died in 1997 at the age of 87, her work continues through the different projects she started throughout her lifetime. She was undoubtedly a beacon of hope whose tireless faith and devotion to humanity touched the lives of many people. Mother Teresa’s body may be dead but she remains a unique and immortal legend. She remains inspirational to many because her life is proof that happiness and serenity life in boundless giving and caring, rather than worrying about one’s own material comfort and security.

At the age of twelve, while attending a Roman Catholic elementary school, Mother Teresa recalled that she knew she had a vocation to help the poor. As a result, she decided to train for missionary work, and at the age of eighteen she joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with a mission in Calcutta. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where in 1928 she took her initial vows as a nun. On May 24, 1931, she took the name of "Teresa" in honor of St. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanish nun.

From 1929 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School for Girls in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1946 she received permission from her archbishop to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poor in the slums of Calcutta. In 1948 Pope Pius XII granted Mother Teresa permission to live as an independent nun. After studying nursing for three months with the American Medical Missionaries in the Indian city of Patna, she returned to work in Calcutta.

In 1952 Mother Teresa began work for which the Missionaries of Charity has been noted ever since. She opened the "Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart) Home for Dying Destitutes" in Calcutta. To fill the home, she and her fellow nuns gathered dying Indians off the streets of Calcutta and brought them to this home to care for them during the days before they died. A true demonstration of Mother Teresa’s selfless love.

Expanding her loving devotion in the mid-1950s, Mother Teresa began to help victims of leprosy. Under Mother Teresa's guidance, a leper colony was established on a plot of land near the city of Asansol, which was donated by the Indian government—it was named Shanti Nagar (Town of Peace). In 1965 Pope Paul VI placed the Missionaries of Charity directly under the control of the papacy (the office of the pope). As a result of its success, he also authorized Mother Teresa to expand the order outside of India. Centers to treat lepers, the blind, the disabled, the aged, and the dying were soon opened worldwide, including one in Rome in 1968.

Mother Teresa has fifty relief projects operating in India: these comprise work among slum-dwellers, children's homes, homes for the dying, clinics and a leper colony. The order has also spread to other countries, and undertakes relief work for the poorest of the poor in a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Continually expanding, the order has also established itself in Italy, Great Britain, Ireland and the United States.

Mother Teresa’s life work and dedication can be summed up by the following excerpt from her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:

"I choose the poverty of our poor people. But I am grateful to receive (the Nobel) in the name of the hungry, the naked, the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the lepers, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared-for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

Works Cited:

- Mother Teresa: A complete Authorized Biography by: Kathryn Spink

- Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of Mother Teresa by: Ragu Rai, Navin Chawla

- Mother Teresa: In My Own Words by: Mother Teresa, Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado

- A Simple Path by: Mother Teresa, Lucinda Vardey