Mother Theresa was internationally respected for her work to
relieve the sufferings of the poor, the sick and drying. She began her work of
desperately poor of India by bringing persons from the streets into a home,
where they could die in peace dignity. She also established an orphanage.
Through her untiring efforts she succeeded in forming a congregation of sisters
whose work has now spread to five continents.
Mother Theresa was born in Skipje, Albania, on August 27, 19910, and was named Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhini. She left her home at the age of 18 to join the Institute of Blessed Virgin mary in Dublin. She entered the order of the Sister of Our Lady of Loreto when she was 18 years old. She was sent to Calcutta by the Sister of Loreto and she became a Geography teacher in a school in Calcutta. While travelling on a train on September 10, 1946, she heard the cries of some sick and helpless people, which inspired her to help the poor. This experience she described as a “call within a call” to help the desperately poor of India.
In early 1948, the year she became an Indian citizen, she asked permission to leave her convent and Sister Agnes become Theresa. She moved into the city’s slums and started nursing to help the destitute in Calcutta. She donned a blue trimmed which became the uniform of missionaries of Charity, founded on October 07, 1950. The Missionaries of Charity now number nearly 3000 sisters of various nationalities who work on five continents. They are helped about 400 brothers and thousands of lay volunteers, who run 380 hospices, leper colonies and orphanages, including 160 in India.
Mother Theresa won many awards for her dedicated work in serving the poorest of the poor. She was awarded the first XXIII peace Prize in 1968 by Pope John Paul. She was honoured with the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize for International Understanding in 1972, the Templeton Prize in 1973, the Albert Schweitzer Prize in 1975, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India’s highest civilian decoration a year later.
Mother Theresa was born in Skipje, Albania, on August 27, 19910, and was named Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhini. She left her home at the age of 18 to join the Institute of Blessed Virgin mary in Dublin. She entered the order of the Sister of Our Lady of Loreto when she was 18 years old. She was sent to Calcutta by the Sister of Loreto and she became a Geography teacher in a school in Calcutta. While travelling on a train on September 10, 1946, she heard the cries of some sick and helpless people, which inspired her to help the poor. This experience she described as a “call within a call” to help the desperately poor of India.
In early 1948, the year she became an Indian citizen, she asked permission to leave her convent and Sister Agnes become Theresa. She moved into the city’s slums and started nursing to help the destitute in Calcutta. She donned a blue trimmed which became the uniform of missionaries of Charity, founded on October 07, 1950. The Missionaries of Charity now number nearly 3000 sisters of various nationalities who work on five continents. They are helped about 400 brothers and thousands of lay volunteers, who run 380 hospices, leper colonies and orphanages, including 160 in India.
Mother Theresa won many awards for her dedicated work in serving the poorest of the poor. She was awarded the first XXIII peace Prize in 1968 by Pope John Paul. She was honoured with the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize for International Understanding in 1972, the Templeton Prize in 1973, the Albert Schweitzer Prize in 1975, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India’s highest civilian decoration a year later.
Mother Theresa died in
1997 at the age of 87. She ended her life in Calcutta, the city that had
inspired her as an 18 year old, to establish her missionaries of Charity Order.
Although mother Theresa is no more, the good work she began lives on, as
Order’s homes, which first started in India, have spread to 87 countries “A
drop of deliverance in an Ocean of suffering” is the single phrase she often
used to describe her life’s work.
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