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September 5
Blessed
Teresa of Calcutta, Mother
(1910-1997)
Mother
Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work
among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those
present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order she founded in 1950
as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative
sisters and brothers and an order of priests.
Speaking
in a strained, weary voice at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II
declared her blessed, prompting waves of applause before the 300,000 pilgrims
in St. Peter's Square. In his homily, read by an aide for the aging pope, the
Holy Father called Mother Teresa “one of the most relevant personalities of our
age” and “an icon of the Good Samaritan.” Her life, he said, was “a bold
proclamation of the gospel.”
Mother
Teresa's beatification, just over six years after her death, was part of an
expedited process put into effect by Pope John Paul II. Like so many others
around the world, he found her love for the Eucharist, for prayer and for the
poor a model for all to emulate.
Born
to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman
Empire), Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children who
survived. For a time, the family lived comfortably, and her father's
construction business thrived. But life changed overnight following his
unexpected death.
During
her years in public school Agnes participated in a Catholic sodality and showed
a strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18 she entered the Loreto
Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her mother for the
final time and made her way to a new land and a new life. The following year
she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling, India. There she chose the
name Teresa and prepared for a life of service. She was assigned to a high school
for girls in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to the daughters
of the wealthy. But she could not escape the realities around her—the poverty,
the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people.
In
1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa heard
what she later explained as “a call within a call. The message was clear. I was
to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them.” She also heard
a call to give up her life with the Sisters of Loreto and, instead, to “follow
Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor.”
After
receiving permission to leave Loreto, establish a new religious community and
undertake her new work, she took a nursing course for several months. She returned
to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor
children. Dressed in a white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian
woman) she soon began getting to know her neighbors—especially
the poor and sick—and getting to know their needs through visits.
The
work was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to
join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of the
Missionaries of Charity. Other helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, the
use of buildings. In 1952 the city of Calcutta gave Mother Teresa a former
hostel, which became a home for the dying and the destitute. As the Order
expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children,
alcoholics, the aging and street people.
For
the next four decades Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor.
Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she
crisscrossed the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face
of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home.
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