The Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, M.C.

,[1] commonly known as Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 5 September 1997),
was aRoman Catholic Religious Sister and missionary[2] of Albanian origin who lived for most of her life in India.
Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2012
consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. They run hospices and homes for people
with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children's and family
counselling programmes; orphanages; and schools. Members of the order must adhere to the vows of chastity,
poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor".[3]
Mother Teresa was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2003, she
was beatified as "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta". A second miracle credited to her intercession is required before she
can be recognised as a saint by theCatholic Church.[1]
A controversial figure both during her life and after her death, Mother Teresa was widely admired by many for her
charitable works, but also widely criticised, particularly for her campaigns against contraception and for substandard
conditions in the hospices for which she was responsible.[4][5]
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life

2 Missionaries of Charity

3 International charity

4 Declining health and death

5 Recognition and reception

o

5.1 In India

5.2 In the rest of the world

5.3 Criticism

6 Spiritual life

7 Miracle and beatification

8 Legacy and depictions in popular culture

o

8.1 Commemoration

8.2 Film and literature

9 See also

10 Notes

11 References

12 Sources

13 External links

Early life

Memorial House of Mother Teresa, in her native Skopje.

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V
T
E

An ethnic Albanian born Anjez Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Albanian: [az de bjadiu]) (gonxha meaning "rosebud"
or "little flower" in Albanian) on 26 August 1910, she considered 27 August, the day she was baptised, to be her "true
birthday".[6] Her birthplace of Skopje, now capital of the Republic of Macedonia, was at the time part of the Ottoman
Empire.[6][7]
She was the youngest of the children of Nikoll and Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Bernai).[8] Her father, who was involved in
Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old.[6][9] After her father's death, her mother raised her as a
Roman Catholic. Her father may have been from Prizren, Kosovo[a] while her mother may have been from a village
near Yakova.[10]
According to a biography written by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives
of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 had become convinced that she should commit herself to
a religious life.[11] Her final resolution was taken on 15 August 1928, while praying at the shrine of the Black
Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.[12]
She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.[13]
Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland, to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto
used to teach school children in India.[14] She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the
Himalayan mountains,[15]where she learnt Bengali and taught at the St. Teresa's School, a schoolhouse close to her
convent.[16] She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose to be named
after Thrse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries,[17][18]but because one nun in the convent had already
chosen that name, Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling Teresa.[19]
She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally,
eastern Calcutta.[6][20][21] Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1944 was appointed headmistress.[22]
Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her
in Calcutta(Kolkata).[23] The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak
of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.[24]