Mother Teresa - Short Biography, Life and Ministry, Interestig facts and Quotes

Mother Teresa
Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu
(26/27 August, 1910, Üsküb, Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, Republic of Macedonia) -5 September 1997, Calcutta, India) (aged 87)
Nationality: India
Category: Votaries оf Spirit
Occupation: Devotees,
Unique distinction: The founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, beatified by Pope John Paul II, canonized by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016 and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Ethnicity: Albanian. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1979).
Gender: Female

Quotes: 1.God doesn't require us to succeed; He only requires that you try. 2. Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. 3. Peace begins with a smile. 4. What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family. 5. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. 6. Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. 7. If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one.

Achievements:

Social and professional position: Albanian and Indian Roman Catholic nun, humanitarian.
The main contribution to (what is known): She is known as the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Her life and ministry has a great impact on the next generations of missionaries in the whole world.
Contributions:

Mother Teresa was an Albanian Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India and was internationally famed as a humanitarian and for her disinterested assistance to the poor and helpless.
For over 45 years she humbly ministered to the poor, sick, lepers, homeless and orphaned, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries.
Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, with some 4,000 nuns and hundreds of thousands of lay workers, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools. She was succeeded by the Indian-born Sister Nirmala.
She became a worldwide symbol of charity, meeting with Princess Diana, Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan, Deng Xiaoping, John Paul II and many other public figures.
She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 19 October 2003 and after beatification she became known as the Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata.
On 26 August 2010, hundreds of nuns, bishops and volunteers dwellers in the Indian city of Calcutta have marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa.
She was canonized by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016 in Saint Peter's Square in Vatican City.

Honors and Awards: In 1963 the Indian government awarded her the Padmashri ("Lord of the Lotus") and in 1971 Pope Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. In 1973 she was awarded Templeton Prize(#1). In 1979 she received the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1980 she won India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna. In 1985 she was awarded the Medal of Freedom from the United States and in 1996 she was proclaimed an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
Major works: She founded the Missionaries of Charity, which now operates schools, hospitals, orphanages worldwide.

Life:

Origin: Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born on August 26, 1910 in Üsküb, Ottoman Empire. She was the youngest of the children of a family of greens Vendor from the city Shkodër, Albania. Her father name was Nikollë and mother -Drana Bojaxhiu. She also had a sister Aga (b.1904) and brother Lazar (b. 1907).
Education: Agnes attended public school in Skopje, were first showed religious interests. She learned English at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland.

Career highlights:

She began her missionary work as a teacher in 1928 in Calcutta, India. She served her mission by walked into the slums and gathering together unschooled children and teaching them literacy and hygiene. In 1948 the Vatican granted her permission to leave her convent in order personally to tend the homeless, starving, and sick in Calcutta's slums.
Revelation. Once Mother Teresa saw how one boy had brought a wheelbarrow with his dying mother and left her near the hospital gates. The woman's body had been rotted and she wasn’t taken to the hospital. Teresa prayed, washed the woman and took care of her. She died in her arms with a smile on her face.
Then on Sept. 10, 1946 during her walk she had a revelation and realized that she had to leave the Order of Loreto and to settle in the slums of Calcutta in order to help the misfortunate and poor people.
On August 16, 1948 Mother Teresa, aged 38, having changed in a cheap sari bought on the market, left her abode owning only five rupees. Members took an fourth vow in addition to the traditional ones of poverty, chastity and obedience, which was to give free service to the most abjectly poor. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, which now operates schools, hospitals, orphanages, and food centers worldwide.
Others joined her and in 1950 her new Order, the Missionaries of Charity received official status as a religious community within the Archdiocese of Calcutta.
Later another two orders have been founded: Missionary Brothers of Charity (1963) and the International co-Workers of Mother Teresa (1969). The missions were opened in Venezuela (1965), Ceylon (1967), in Rome and Tanzania (1968), and in Cuba (1986). Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated areas.
In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.

Personal life:

Although Agnes was born on August 26, she considered August 27, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday." Her first name - Gonxhe meaning "rosebud" in Albanian.
Her father died in 1919 when she was eight years old. After that her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. When she was 12 years old Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and was convinced that she should commit herself to serving people. She left home at age 18 and never again saw her mother, sister and brother.
In 1928 Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland and joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Lareto, a Catholic order that did charity work in India. At that time she chose the name Teresa after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries and took her first vows.
She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains. She took her solemn vows on May 24, 1931 and on May 14, 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent girls' school in eastern Calcutta.
Although in her later years she suffered from a worsening heart condition, Mother Teresa continued to serve the poor and sick and also lead an active social life, spoke out against divorce, contraception, and abortion.
She died on 5 September 1997 at the age of 87 years old.
Remains: Buried, Mother House Convent, Calcutta, India.

Links:

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