Mother Teresa of Calcutta

It is not about beeing a religious person, it is only about having the feeling that you are able to help others and do something for them, this frase motivates me to write this post, because this woman did all for others, and was a great human being, as we all can become just by doing things with our heart for the needed ones.

Religion : Roman Catholic

Order : Sisters of Loreto (1.928–1.950)

Missionaries of Charity (1.950–1.997)

Personal

Nationality : Indian

Born : Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu - 26 August 1.910

Üsküp (Skopje), Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire

Died :  5 September 1997 (aged 87) Calcutta, India

Title : Superior general

Period in office : 1950–1997

Successor : Sister Nirmala

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Albanian: [aˈɲɛs ˈɡɔɲdʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]) and commonly known as Mother Teresa (26 August 1.910 – 5 September 1.997), was an ethnic Albanian, Indian Roman Catholic nun.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation, which in 2.012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters and is active in 133 countries. 

They run hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; children's and family counseling programmes; orphanages; and schools. 

Members of the order must adhere to the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, and the fourth vow, to give "Wholehearted and Free service to the poorest of the poor".

She was the recipient of numerous honours including the 1.979 Nobel Peace Prize. 

In late 2.003, she was beatified, the third step toward possible sainthood, giving her the title "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta". 

A second miracle credited to Mother Teresa is required before she can be recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church.

She was admired by many; in 1.999, a poll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. 

However, she has also been criticized for failing to provide medical care or pain killers because she felt that suffering would bring people closer to Jesus, for misusing charitable moneys, and for maintaining positive relationships with dictators.

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "little flower" in Albanian) was born on 26 August 1910, but she considered 27 August, the day she was baptised, to be her "true birthday".

She was born in Skopje, now capital of the Republic of Macedonia, but at the time part of the Ottoman Empire.

She was the youngest of the children of Nikollë and Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Bernai).

Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1.919 when she was eight years old.

After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. Her father, Nikollë Bojaxhiu was possibly from Prizren, Kosovo[a] while her mother was possibly from a village near Đakovica, Kosovo.

According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life.

Her final resolution was taken on 15 August 1.928, while praying at the shrine of the Black Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.

She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. 

She never again saw her mother or sister.

Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland, to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.

She arrived in India in 1.929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains, where she learnt Bengali and taught at the St. Teresa’s School, a schoolhouse close to her convent.

She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1.931. 

At that time she chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries,but because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, 

Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling Teresa.

She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1.937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta.

Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1.944 was appointed headmistress.

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta (Kolkata).

The Bengal famine of 1.943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1.946 plunged the city into despair and horror.

On 10 September 1.946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while travelling by train to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. 

"I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. 

It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith."

As one author later noted, "Though no one knew it at the time, Sister Teresa had just become Mother Teresa".

She began her missionary work with the poor in 1.948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border. 

Mother Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, spent a few months in Patna to receive a basic medical training in the Holy Family Hospital and then ventured out into the slums. 

Initially she started a school in Motijhil (Calcutta); soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving.

In the beginning of 1.949 she was joined in her effort by a group of young women and laid the foundations to create a new religious community helping the "poorest among the poor".

Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the prime minister, who expressed his appreciation.

Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties. 

She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. 

Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. 

She wrote in her diary :

Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. 

Today I learned a good lesson. 

The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. 

While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food and health. 

Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. 

'You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again,' the Tempter kept on saying ... 

Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come.

Teresa received Vatican permission on 7 October 1.950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity.

Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

It began as a small order with thirteen members in Calcutta; by .1997 it had grown to more than 4,000 sisters running orphanages, Aids hospices and charity centres worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.

Mother Teresa is the subject of the 1.969 documentary film and 1.972 book. 

Something Beautiful for God, a 1.997 Art Film Festival award winning film starring Geraldine Chaplin called Mother Teresa : In the Name of God's Poor, a 2.003 Italian miniseries titled Mother Teresa of Calcutta, (which was re-released in 2.007 and received a Camie award,) and was portrayed by Megan Fox in a satirical film-within-a-film in the 2.007 movie how to Lose friends and alienate people.