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| Mother Teresa 1910-1997 "A nation that destroys the life of an unborn child, who has been created for living and loving, who has been created in the image of God, is in a tremendous poverty." "My gift is the ability to see the face of Jesus in its most distressing disguise." |  | ||||
| Growing up in Albania Born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje in Macedonia, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhia was the youngest of three children of an Albanian family. As she was pink and plump, her brothers and sisters fondly called her "Gonxha" (flower bud). From childhood the children were taught the lessons of charity. Agnes liked to be in church, reading, praying and singing. When she was quite young, she felt the desire to spend her entire life for God and His work. For this decision, she was helped by a father to whom she confessed her desire. At the age of 18 she joined the Loreto Sisters who were very active in India. She was trained in religious activities. She choose the name Sister Teresa. In 1929 Sister Teresa was assigned to teach at the St Mary's Convent School in Calcutta, India.
At first she did not get the permission to leave the convent but in 1948 she got the permission specifically from Pope Pius XIII to leave the the Loreto community and work among the city's poor. Since then, she has remained a guardian angel for the sick and dying the world over. She chose to wear the plain white sari with the blue border and a simple cross pinned to her left shoulder. Mother's Foundations Mother's Order, founded in 1947, has nearly 4000 nuns running orphanages, homes of poor, AIDS hospices and other charitable centers around the world. In 1948, she opened the first school for slum children in Calcutta. She used to help the poor and taught them about hygiene. In 1952, she opened Nirmal Hriday (or Pure hearts), a home for the dying. On the very first day, Mother Teresa picked up a woman literally half-eaten by rats and ants and carried her to the home and cleaned her. This Home for Dying became more and more popular where the dying who had no place to go were brought and were given proper medical treatment. Another of Mother's foundations was Shishu Bhavan -- the home for babies. Children whose parents cannot care them, or whose parents have left them on the streets. Mother Teresa also started a colony for lepers where they could build their own houses and could work on their own fields. The colony was called Shanti Nagar. The biggest problem, according to her, was not the disease but the lack of love and charity, the feeling of being unwanted. | |||||