Mother Teresa was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun who born in Albania and devoted her life to helpless people in India. She was born on 26th August 1910 in Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire which is now the capital of North Macedonia. An interesting fact is she was born on 26 August, but it was considered 27 August as her true birthday after she was baptized. Her Birth name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, but she was named as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, St. Mother Teresa. She left her home and reached in India to live a religious life. She was considered one of the greatest Civil Right Hero due to work for humanity. She has opened many charities in India and abroad. Missionaries of Charity is one of them.

Mother Teresa’s Personal life

Mother Teresa was born on 26 August 1910 into a Kosovar Albanian family in Skopje, Ottoman Empire. Now, this is the capital of North Macedonia.

Her father’s name was Nikolle Bojaxhiu and mother Dranafile Bojaxhiu. She was the youngest child of her parents. Her sister was Aga Bojaxhiu and brother Lazar Bojaxhiu. Her father was an entrepreneur who worked as a construction contractor and a trader of medicines and other goods. Her father was involved in Albanian-community politics in Ottoman Macedonia. When she was eight years old her father died.

She received her early education at a convent-run primary school and After her father’s death, she received her education from a state secondary school in neighboring Croatia. The school was a Roman Catholic. Teresa learned here about the work of Catholic missionaries in India and was inspired by the mission field herself.

At the age of 18 in 1928 Teresa went to join the Sisters of Loreto the Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland. She left home to learn English with the view of becoming a missionary. Because English was the language of instruction of the Sisters of Loreto in India. She never saw her family again.

Teresa change her name from Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to Sister Mary Teresa while she was in Ireland. Six weeks later she moved from Ireland to India. She arrived in India. On December 1, 1928, Teresa left Ireland and traveled by boat to India. On January 6, 1929, she arrived in Calcutta after a long journey through the Suez Canal, across the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal.

One week after, she went to Darjeeling to begin a two-year course of studies. Teresa was made here a Loreto novitiate and received her nun’s uniform. She learned here Hindi and Bengali language.

On May 24, 1931, Teresa made her first temporary vows and began teaching in the Loreto convent school of Darjeeling. Mother Teresa helped the nursing staff at a small medical station in Darjeeling. Then she was sent to Loreto Entally in Calcutta. In St. Mary’s high school in Loreto school, Teresa taught geography and history in English to the Bengali Girls.

The Loreto nuns believed that education can solve the problems of poverty in India. On 14 May 1937, Teresa took her second vows known as solemn vows. She began to teach the slum children at St. Teresa’s primary school outside the compound of Loreto Entally. The slum children called her “Maa” which means Mother. She became Mother Teresa. In 1944 she was appointed as its headmistress. She served there for nearly twenty years.

On September 10, 1946, while she was in a train for Darjeeling she experienced the call of her inner conscious “call within a call,” which she considered a divine inspiration to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. Daily she went outside to beg for food for the sick and poor.

In October 1946, she returned to Entally Calcutta from Darjeeling. She sought permission from her superiors to leave the convent school. Pope Pius XII granted her permission on April 12, 1948.

In 1948, She replaced her traditional Loreto habit with a simple, white cotton sari with a blue border and began her missionary work with the poor. She adopted Indian citizenship.

She went to Patna to learn basic medical training at Holy Family Hospital for the care of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the recovery period.

In 1949, Mother Teresa laid the foundation of a new religious community called “poorest among the poor” with the help of some group of young women.

On 7 October 1950, Teresa received permission for the foundation of a small community called “Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese” which was becoming ‘Missionaries of Charity‘.

In 1952, Mother Teresa opened her first hospice in an abandoned Hindu temple of Kali with help from Calcutta officials. She renamed it as Nirmal Hriday.

In 1955, Teresa opened her first orphanage for abandoned babies and children called “Nirmala Shishu Bhavan”.

By the end of 1960, it had opened a lot of hospices, orphanages, and leper houses throughout India with the help of donations.

In 1983 Mother Teresa had a heart attack while she was in Rome. In 1989, she had her second heart attack and she received an artificial pacemaker for her heart. In 1991, Teresa wanted her to resign from the head of the Missionaries of Charity due to her heart problem but the sisters of the congregation voted her secretly to stay with charity. In April 1996 Mother Teresa had faced several health problems. She had fallen and her collarbone was broken, and she had malaria and heart failure. On 13 March 1997 Teresa resigned as head of the Missionaries of Charity. On 5 September 1997, she died.