Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa was born August 27, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, what
is now Yugoslavia. At the age of twelve, while attending a Roman
Catholic elementary school, she records that she knew she had a
vocation to help the poor. She decided to train for missionary
work, and a few years later made India her choice. At the age of
eighteen she left her home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of
Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with a mission in Calcutta.
After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India, where
in 1928 she took her initial vows as a nun.
From 1929 to 1948 Mother
Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering
and poverty she glimpsed outside
the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1946
she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent
school and devote herself to working among the poor in the slums
of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she started an open-air
school for homeless children. Soon, voluntary helpers, and financial
support from various church organizations and municipal authorities
joined her. This made it possible for her to extend the scope of
her work, and in 1950, she received permission to start her own
order "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task
was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look
after. Today the order comprises some one thousand sisters and
brothers in India, of whom a small number are non-Indian. Many
have been trained as doctors, nurses and social workers, and are
in a position to provide effective help for the slum population
as well as undertaking relief work in connection with such natural
catastrophes as floods, epidemics, famine and swarms of refugees.
Mother
Teresa has fifty relief projects operating in India: these comprise
work among slum-dwellers, children's homes, homes for
the dying, clinics and a leper colony. The order has also spread
to other countries, and undertakes relief work for the poorest
of the poor in a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. The order has also established itself in Italy, Great
Britain, Ireland and the United States. She created a global
network of homes for the poor, from Calcutta to New York, including
one
of the first homes for AIDS victims.
Mother Teresa's work has aroused considerable attention throughout
the world, and she has received a number of awards and distinctions:
in 1971 she received the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, in 1972
the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding,
and in 1979 the Balzan Prize for promoting peace among the nations.
In
1982, at the height of the siege of Beirut, she persuaded the
Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas to stop shooting long enough
for her to rescue 37 children trapped in a front-line hospital.
She has worked hard to promote understanding, tolerance and respect
among people throughout her life and she is a true inspiration
to all.
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