Mother Teresa

Born to Nikolle and Dranafile Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Mother Teresa was the youngest child of the Albanian couple. She was born on August 26, 1910 and was baptized the following day as Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, a date she considered her ‘true birthday’. She received her First Communion when she was five and a half.

Raised in a devoutly Catholic family, her father was an entrepreneur by profession. Her mother had a spiritual and religious bent of mind and was active participant in the local church activities.

Sudden and tragic death of her father when she was eight years old left young Agnes disheartened. Despite facing financial crisis, Dranafile did not compromise on the upbringing of her children and raised them with utmost love, care and affection. Over the years, young Agnes grew extremely close to her mother.

It was Dranafile’s firm belief and religious attitude that greatly influenced Agnes character and future vocation. A pious and compassionate woman, she instilled in Agnes a deep commitment to charity, which was further affirmed by her involvement in the Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart.

As Agnes turned 18, she found her true calling as a nun and left home for good to enrol herself at the Institute of the Blessed Mary Virgin, also called Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland. It was there that she first received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St Therese of Lisieux.

After a year of training, Sister Mary Teresa came to India in 1929 and initiated her novitiate in Darjeeling, West Bengal, as a teacher at St Teresa’s School. She learned the local language of the state, Bengali.

Sister Teresa took her first religious vows in May 1931. Thereafter, she was assigned duty at the Loreto Entally community of Calcutta and taught at St Mary’s School.

Six years later, on May 24, 1937, she took her Final Profession of Vows and with that acquired the name, which the world recognizes her with today, Mother Teresa. The next twenty years of her life, Mother Teresa dedicated to serving as a teacher at the St Mary’s School, graduating to the post of the principal in 1944.

Within the walls of the convent, Mother Teresa was known for her love, kindness, compassion and generosity. Her unflinching commitment to serving the society and mankind was greatly recognized by students and teachers. However, just as much Mother Teresa enjoyed teaching young girls, she was greatly disturbed by the poverty and misery that was prevalent in Calcutta.

Little did she know that the journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling made by Mother Teresa for her yearly retreat, on September 10, 1946 would transform her life completely.

She experienced a call within a call - a call from the Almighty to fulfil His heartfelt desire of serving the ‘poorest of the poor’. Mother Teresa explained the experience as an order from Him, which she could not fail on any condition as it would mean breaking the faith.

He asked Mother Teresa to establish a new religious community, Missionaries of Charity Sisters, which would be dedicated to serving the ‘poorest of the poor’. The community would work in the slums of Calcutta and help the poorest and sick people.

Since Mother Teresa had taken a vow of obedience, leaving the convent without official permission was impossible. For nearly two years, she lobbied for initiating the new religious community, which brought favourable result in the January of 1948 as she received a final approval from the local Archbishop Ferdinand Perier to pursue the new calling.

On August 17, 1948, clad in a white blue-bordered saree, Mother Teresa walked past the gate of the convent, which had been her habitat for almost two decades, to enter the world of poor, a world that needed her, a world which He wanted her to serve, a world she knew of as her own!