Mother Teresa Biography: For aeons, man has inhabited the planet. However, few individuals devote their complete lives to serving others. They exist to alleviate others’ distress. The purpose of their life is to alleviate their suffering and promote joy.
Mother Teresa was among the handful. She had dedicated her entire existence to the welfare of others. She became the support of the destitute, ailing, and vulnerable individuals. She will eternally be the GlobalIcon.
Mother Teresa Biography
| Name: | Mother Teresa |
| Birth Date: | August 26, 1910 |
| Place Of Birth: | Skopje |
| Death: | 5 September 1997 |
Early Years
Teresa was born on August 26, 1910. She was born in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. She was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary (a person who travels in order to spread religion).
Her Childhood and Family
Nikola Bojaxhiu was Mother Teresa’s father, while Dranafile Bojaxhiu was Teresa’s mother. Her father was an entrepreneur. He operated as both a Construction Contractor and a medical drug supplier.
Her father, Nikola Bojaxhiu, had perished when she was only 9 years old. After Nicola’s passing, his business associates fled with the entire fortune. In addition, the world war was occurring at the time, so his family was also experiencing financial difficulties. That time period was the most tragic for her and her family.
However, her mother, Dranafile Bojaxhiu, was an extremely powerful woman. She never gave up hope. She assumed all of the responsibilities for providing for her family. For the survival of her family, she began a modest business selling embroidered and other handcrafted clothing. If later, these characteristics are also present in them.
Works
Mother Teresa experienced the “call within the call” in 1946 when she travelled by train from Calcutta to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat. She began missionary work with the impoverished in 1948, wearing a simple white cotton sari with a blue border in place of her traditional Loreto habit. She obtained Indian citizenship, received rudimentary medical training at Holy Family Hospital in Patna for several months, and then ventured into the slums. Prior to caring for the impoverished and hungry, she established a school in Motijhil, Calcutta.
In 1949, she and a group of young women founded a religious community to aid the “poorest among the poor.” Her efforts captured the attention of Indian officials, including the prime minister, very rapidly. Mother Teresa wrote in her journal that her first year as a missionary was fraught with difficulty; she had no income and had to beg for food and supplies; she also struggled with doubt, loneliness, and the temptation to return to the security of the convent during these early months.
On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa was granted permission by the Vatican to establish the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. The congregation would care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, and the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, and uncared for throughout society, who have become a burden to society and are shunned by everyone.”
With the assistance of Calcutta officials, Mother Teresa established her first hospice in 1952, transforming an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying and renaming it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). She established leprosy outreach facilities throughout all of Calcutta, supplying medication, bandages, and food.
By the 1960s, the congregation had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper residences throughout India, after attracting new members and financial support. By 1997, the 13-member Calcutta congregation had expanded to over 4,000 sisters who managed orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centres around the world, caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, elderly, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.
Mother Teresa made occasional humanitarian journeys outside of India, and by 1996, the Missionaries of Charity ran 517 missions in more than 100 countries. In 1984, the congregation operated 19 businesses throughout the United States.
Global renown and Honours
The work of Mother Teresa has been recognised and admired globally. She received so many awards worldwide.
The Decree of Praise was bestowed upon the Missionaries of Charity by Pope Paul VI, which prompted Mother Teresa’s expansion abroad. The Missionaries of Charity had nearly 4,000 members, in addition to tens of thousands of civilian volunteers. By the time she died, it had grown into a vast network of charitable endeavours.
Additionally, Missionaries of Charity had 610 branches in 123 countries.
Many awards, including the Decree of Praise, were bestowed upon Mother Teresa for her devoted and selfless charity, among them the Decree of Praise. She was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, in 1980.
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Facts About Mother Teresa
Here are a few little-known facts about Mother Teresa:
- Mother Teresa was profoundly moved by Mahatma Gandhi. She was profoundly influenced by his nonviolence principles and ideology.
- During her youth, she devoted the majority of her time in church. Consequently, she became captivated by the missionary lifestyle.
- In 1928, when she was 18 years old, Teresa fled her home. After that, she never returns to her family again.
- Mother Teresa may be able to communicate in five languages. It included Albanian, Serbian, English, Hindi, and Bengali. She believed that by acquiring multiple languages, she could communicate with and comprehend the pain and suffering of others.
- Kolkata’s Lorento Convent School was where Mother Teresa launched her philanthropic work on a full-time basis. She felt, however, that she was destined for greater things.
- And that was to assist the needy, the homeless, and the impoverished.
- In 1979, Teresa received the highest honour in the world, the Nobel Peace Prize. She spent her entire existence among the impoverished, sick, hungry, and needy.
Mother Teresa opposed contraception and abortion vehemently. She believed that there was no distinction between murdering a person and killing an unborn child. Both are equally revolting to the human race. - Teresa taught geography, arithmetic, and religion at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta from 1931 to 1948. Later, she became the school’s principal.
- 1979 saw the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mother Teresa for her immense and selfless service to the impoverished and needy.
- The Roman Catholic Church’s Pope Francis proclaimed Mother Teresa a saint in 2015. This is known as canonization, and it means that Mother Teresa is now known in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
- Mother Teresa received invitations to speak at the Vatican and the United Nations, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity granted to only a handful of influential individuals.
Death
In 1983, Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack while visiting Pope John Paul II in Rome. In 1989, following a second heart attack, she received a pacemaker. After contracting pneumonia in Mexico in 1991, she developed additional cardiac problems. Although Mother Teresa offered to resign as leader of the Missionaries of Charity, the congregation’s sisters voted in a confidential ballot for her to continue, and she agreed to do so.
In April 1996, Mother Teresa broke her clavicle after a fall, and four months later, she was diagnosed with malaria and heart failure. Despite undergoing heart surgery, her health was obviously deteriorating. According to Archbishop of Calcutta Henry Sebastian D’Souza, he ordered a priest to conduct an exorcism on her (with her consent) when she was initially hospitalised with cardiac problems because he believed she was under attack by the devil.
Mother Teresa resigned as leader of the Missionaries of Charity on March 13, 1997. She passed on September 5th. At the time of her passing, the Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters and 300 associated brothers operating 610 missions in 123 nations.
These included hospices and homes for individuals with HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, child and family counselling initiatives, orphanages, and schools. In the 1990s, the Missionaries of Charity were assisted by over one million coworkers.
A week before her funeral, Mother Teresa remained in repose in an open casket in St. Thomas, Calcutta. The Indian government honoured her with a state funeral for her service to the country’s impoverished of all religions. Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano delivered the homily at the service as the Pope’s representative. The death of Mother Teresa was lamented by both secular and religious communities. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, referred to her as “a rare and singular individual who lived a long life for greater purposes.” Her dedication throughout her life to caring for the impoverished, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the finest examples of service to humanity.” She is the United Nations,” said former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. She represents universal peace.”
