Mother Teresa

BLESSED MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA Mother Teresa of Calcutta was an Albanian-born Indian Roman Catholic nun and founder of the Missionaries of Charity. She was a very devout catholic who dedicated her life to caring for well-being of others and helping those in need of love and affection. Her beliefs and values of life reflected her religious identity and purpose, which developed and contributed to her life and work. Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, in Macedonia, on the 26th of August, 1910.From her childhood, Agnes attended prayers and received first communion at the age of five. Her father died when she was just eight years old leaving the family in financial straits. Her mother raised her children firmly as Roman Catholics and this greatly influenced Agnes' character and vocation. Her religious formation was further assisted by the parish of the Sacred Heart in which she was much involved. Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service i n Bengal.By the age of 12, she was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. She left home at the age of 18 and joined the sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. She arrived in India and began her novitiate in Darjeeling in 1929, where she taught at the St. Mary’s school. She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24th May 1931. She chose to be named after Therese de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries and received the name Sister Mary Teresa.She stood her final profession of vows on 14th May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta. Mother Teresa was deeply disturbed by the suffering and poverty surrounding her in Calcutta. On 10th September 1946, she experienced what she later described as â€Å"the call within the call†. She heard God’s voice- the message was â€Å"to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. † It was an order and had to be obeyed. â€Å"To fail would have been to break the faith. †She left the Loreto community and devoted herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948 wearing the traditional white cotton sari with a blue border. After receiving basic medical training in Patna , she ventured out into the slums. Although she had no funds and no income, she depended on Divine Providence and started the first open-air school for slum children in Calcutta, helping them and teaching them about hygiene. Soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving.In early 1949 she was joined by a group of women and laid the foundations to create a new religious community helping the â€Å"poorest of the poor. † On 7th October 1950, Mother Teresa started the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for â€Å"the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those peo ple who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society†. It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta and by 1997 it had grown to more than 4000 sisters. In 1952 Mother Teresa opened a home for the dying in Calcutta.She converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Home of the Pure Heart. Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith. â€Å"A beautiful death is for people who live like animals to die like angels-loved and wanted. † The Missionaries of charity established a home and clinics for those suffering from Hansen’s disease, commonly known as leprosy, providing medication, bandages and food. Later in 1955 they opened a children’s home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.The order spread through India in the 1960’s and soon expanded through the globe. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was found ed in 1963 and contemplative branch of the sisters followed in 1976. In 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi movement for priests and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5000 sisters worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.Her work has been recognised and acclaimed throughout the world and she has received a number of awards and distinctions, including the Pope John Paul xx111 Peace Prize, 1971, the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding, 1972. After Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the third step towards canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa.In 2002, the Vatican recognised as a miracle the healing of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, aft er the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa’s picture. The beatification of Mother Teresa took place on 19th October 2003, bestowing on her the title â€Å"Blessed†. A second miracle is required for her to process to canonization. Everywhere in the world, Mother Teresa's work has been seen and awarded & she was given many awards for her selfless & loving acts. Pope John XXIII awarded Mother Teresa the Peace Prize in the year of 1971.Also, she was awarded the Nehru Prize because of her promotion of international peace and understanding in the year of 1972. Sadly, Mother Teresa had died on September 5, 1997 in her convent in India when she was at the age of 87. All in all, Mother Teresa was a selfless, living saint that had changed the lives of millions of people throughout the world. She had affected the lives of the poor, Catholics, & people like herself, that wanted to help others. She had done many great things from becoming a nun to creating one of the most effective orders in Catholic history. Mother Teresa Agnes Goanna Bauxite was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. Her parents' names were Nikolas and Droned Boo]axis, and she was the youngest of three children. Agnes was interested in helping people at a very young age. She became a member of a youth group in her parish called Stolidity. While she was a member of this youth group, she became interested in missionaries.She Joined a community known for their missionary work in India named the Sisters f Loretta at the age of 17. This is where she took her vows, and she chose the name Teresa after Saint There's of Leslies. Soon after, Sister Teresa began teaching at SST. Marry High School in Calcutta. In 1944 she became the principle of the high school. Sister Teresa became very ill and was not able to teach anymore, she was sent to Adrenaline for rest and recuperation. On the way to Adrenaline, she received a call that said, â€Å"She was to leave the convent and work with the poor, living among them. Mother Teresa started teac hing at a school in the slums. She also learned basic declined skills and treated people that could not afford doctors or medicine. Mother Teresa and some of her pupils went around poor neighborhoods and looked for dying children, men and women on the side of the streets who were rejected by local hospitals and brought them to a room that she rented out, and gave them the opportunity to die knowing that someone cared. The group of people that did this with mother Teresa was known as the Missionaries of Charity. The Missionaries of Charity started to branch throughout the world.The society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI. In the asses Malcolm Muggier wrote and produced a documentary called â€Å"Something Beautiful for God†. This book brought a wider public attention to the life of Mother Teresa. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, â€Å"for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace. † Mother Teresa did not attend the banquet but, but asked that the $192,000 be given to the poor. She also was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest U. S. Civilian award.She also received the honorary U. S. Citizenship. Mother Teresa never tried to convert the people she helped to the Catholic faith, but she still had strict a Catholic faith. She was strict on abortion, the death penalty, and divorce. On February 3, 1994 at a National Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives, in Washington DC, Mother Teresa spoke about family life and abortion. She said, â€Å"Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Give the child to me. The last two decades of her life she spent traveling with different branches of the Missionaries of Charity helping the poor.During this time she mad multiple illnesses. In Rome is 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II, she suffered a heart attack. While she was in Mexico she suffe red from pneumonia, soon after she suffered from further heart problems. Due to all of her health issues she offered to resign from her head of Missionaries of Charity position, but the order of the sisters, a secret ballet, voted for her to stay. In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone, in August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. After her heart surgery her health began to decline again.She believed that she was under attack by the devil so she had a priest perform an exorcism on her. On March 13, 1997 she finally resigned from her head of Missionaries of Charity position. She died on September 5, 1997. If Mother Teresa had never come to be most people would not be affected, however it would have made a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of lives that she impacted thought her life. Mother Teresa Mother Teresa was born on 26 August 1910, but she considered 27 August, the day she was baptized, to be her â€Å"true birthday†. She was born in Skopje, now capital of the Republic of Macedonia, but at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. On 10 September 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as â€Å"the call within the call† while travelling by train to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat. â€Å"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. † She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, 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 1949 she was joined in her effort by a group of young women and laid the foundations to create a new religious community helping the â€Å"poorest among the poor†. In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she travelled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the â€Å"poorest of the poor† in 450 centres around the world. Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity, but the sisters of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order. In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery but it was clear that her health was declining. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalised with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil. On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5 September 1997. Mother Teresa â€Å"Love is repaid by love alone.† Mother Teresa first read these words when she was eighteen years old while on her way to Ireland to become a nun. Sixty-nine years later before her death she must have realized that she was one of the most loved women in the world. If the Saint Teresa’s phrase has any literal meaning, there is possibly no one in our age who has deserved so much love in return as Mother Teresa. Anyone who has heard her story can attest to her greatness. This was a woman who felt being a devout nun, just wasn’t enough. She gave up her Sisters of Loreto robe for the blue and white sari of the poor, to aid and live among the destitute of Calcutta. Upon taking a vow of poverty, purity and obedience to start her new order, she told herself, â€Å"I’ll teach myself to beg no matter how much abuse and humiliation I have to endure† in order to help others. Her unwavering devotion to this cause came from her belief that her work was nothing less than a direct order from God. Her Childhood Mother Teresa's story begins in the small town of Skopje in Albania, Eastern Europe. She was born in Skopje on 27th August 1910 to a shopkeeper, Nikolle Bojaxhiu and his wife Drana. She was given the names Agnes Gonxha. The family always called her Gonxha, which means flower bud, because she was always plump and pink and cheerful. She was the youngest of three children, with a brother Lazar and sister Aga. They lived in a large house with a big garden. The Bojaxhiu family had a long tradition of success in crafts, fabric-dyeing and trade. Gonxhe was baptized in the Heart of Jesus Catholic Church and successfully completed elementary and high school years in church schools, where she was an active member of the drama section, the literary section, and the church chorus. Her parents were very caring and never turned away anyone who needed help. When Mother Teresa recalled her childhood she said ‘We were a united and very happy family.' Her greatest joy as a child came during church masses where she could sing, read and pray. Agnes attended mass every day, prayed and said the rosary every night. When Agnes was eight years old her father died. Her mother worked very hard to make sure the children were happy and Mother Teresa remembered her childhood as being ‘exceptionally happy.' Agnes’ mother continued to help others in need, seemingly unaware of her own condition. She would take care of alcoholic women in their neighborhood and helped another widow with six children raise her family. When that widow died, those six children became a part of the Bojaxhiu family. By looking back on Mother Teresa’s childhood now we cannot help but understand the effects of her mother’s values, charity and devotion. She grew up surrounded by faith and compassion and at age twelve received her first â€Å"calling from God† to help the poor. Upon hearing of this experience, her mother gave Agnes this advice, â€Å"Put your hands in His hands and walk all the way with Him.†Ã‚   So at 12, she joined an Abbey, and at 18 she became a member of the Loreto Order of nuns. She trained in Dublin, where the motherhouse of the Loreto Sisters was. She chose the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of Saint Thà ©rà ¨se of Lisieux. In December 1928 she began her journey to India and continued to Darjeeling, at the base of the Himalayan Mountains, where she would continue her training towards her religious vows. Soon after, on January 6, 1929 she arrived in Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, India to teach at a school for girls. In Calcutta, she worked as a school aid, teacher and principal for a middle-class high school for Bengali girls. During these years she could not help but be touched by the poverty and misery in the streets and slums around her. She started actively going to hospitals and slums where she became more and more dissatisfied with the state of the people around her and the efforts to help them. On September 10, 1946, on the long train ride to Darjeeling where she was to go on a retreat and to recover from suspected tuberculosis, something happened. She had a life-changing encounter with the Living Presence of the Will of God. Mother Teresa recalls: â€Å"I realized that I had the call to take care of the sick and the dying, the hungry, the naked, the homeless – to be God's Love in action to the poorest of the poor. That was the beginning of the Missionaries of Charity.† Read also  Summary : Love Is Never Silent She didn't hesitate, she didn't question. She asked permission to leave the Loreto congregation and to establish a new order of sisters. While the church recommended she join the Daughters of Saint Anna, who worked with the poor, Sister Teresa felt this was not nearly adequate to the calling she had received. She didn’t want to help the poor and retreat to a convent at night, but instead become one of the poor herself. She received that permission from Pope Pius XII. In 1948, at the age of 38, she exchanged her sister’s robe for the uniform of Calcutta’s poor and adopted a diet of rice and salt. The impoverished people of Calcutta were stunned by her presence among them. They could not understand why this European woman who spoke their language fluently would wash their babies, clean their wounds and educate their young. It was here in the streets of Calcutta where she was approached by one of her former students who made the remarkable request to join her. Mother Teresa was hesitant to invite someone else to take part in her calling because she wanted to make sure they understood the poverty that they would have to live in. Several weeks after Mother Teresa asked her former student to take time to think about it, the girl returned without any personal belongings or jewelry, wearing a sari, the uniform of the poor. She took Mother Teresa’s childhood name, Agnes as her own and became the first sister to join Mother Teresa’s calling. More sisters would join every month and by 1950, Sister Teresa had received approval from the Vatican to create another vow beyond her sister’s vows of poverty, purity and obedience. The fourth addition was, â€Å"To devote oneself out of abnegation to the care of the poor and needy who, crushed by want and destitution, live in conditions unworthy of human dignity.† With this vow, the Missionaries of Charity were born and its members were commanded to seek out the poor, abandoned, sick, infirm and dying and Sister Teresa became Mother Teresa. She wrote in her diary at this time that, â€Å"If the rich people can have the full service and devotion of so many nuns and priests, surely the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low can have the love and devotion of a few–The Slum Sister they call me, and I am glad to be just that for His love and glory.† In 1952 Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity began the work for which they have been noted ever since. Her order received permission from Calcutta officials to use a portion of the abandoned temple to Kali, the Hindu goddess of transition and destroyer of demons. Mother Teresa founded here the Kalighat Home for the Dying, which she named â€Å"Nirmal Hriday† (meaning â€Å"Pure Heart†). She and her fellow nuns gathered dying Indians off the streets of Calcutta and brought them to this home to care for them during the days before they died. Mother Teresa's first orphanage was started in 1953, while in 1957 she and her Missionaries of Charity began working with lepers. In the years following, her homes (she called them â€Å"tabernacles†) have been established in hundreds of locations in the world. The world came to know Mother Teresa after a 1969 BBC documentary on her work, which included footage of a potential miracle. Images of an area in the hospice too dark to show up on film appeared in a soft light after development. This public exposure led to growth of her order throughout India and later in the world. Soon after Cardinal Spellman from the United States visited her at the Motherhouse. Mother Teresa recalled, â€Å"He asked me where we lived. I told him, ‘Here in this room, your Eminence. This is our refectory. We move the tables and benches to the side.’ He wanted to know where the rest of our convent was, where we could study. ‘We study here, too, your Eminence,’ I said. Then I added, ‘And this is also our dormitory.’ When the Cardinal asked if we had a chapel, I brought him to the end of this room. ‘It is also our chapel, your Eminence’ I told him†¦I don’t know what he was thinking, but he began to smile.† Mother Teresa made no exceptions to her dedication. When asked what she expected of a sister she said, â€Å"Let God radiate and live his life in her and through her in the slums. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let her be a friend of the little children in the street. I would much rather they make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.† Mother Teresa's Wisdom Analyzing her deed and achievements, John Paul II asked: â€Å"Where did Mother Teresa find the strength to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart.† â€Å"I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord Himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?† â€Å"The poor give us much more than we give them. They’re such strong people, living day to day with no food. And they never curse, never complain. We don’t have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them. â€Å"There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Put your love for them in living action. For in loving them, you are loving God Himself.† â€Å"It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.† â€Å"To God there is nothing small. The moment we have given it to God, it becomes infinite.† â€Å"You have to be holy in your position as you are, and I have to be holy in the position that God has put me. So it is nothing extraordinary to be holy. Holiness is not the luxury of the few. Holiness is a simple duty for you and for me. We have been created for that.† Her Achievements In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her order to other countries. Teresa's order started to rapidly grow, with new homes opening all over the globe. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, including Albania. In addition, the first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Today over one million workers worldwide volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa traveled to help the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become known internationally. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge . In 1971 Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Other awards bestowed upon her included a Kennedy Prize (1971), the Balzan prize (1978) for humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples, the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975), the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1994), honorary citizenship of the United States (November 16, 1996), and honorary degrees from a number of universities. In 1972 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, â€Å"for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace.† She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $6,000 funds be diverted to the poor in Calcutta, claiming the money would permit her to feed hundreds of needy for a year. In the same year, she was also awarded the Balzan Prize for promoting peace and brotherhood among the nations. At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools. Mother Teresa was granted a full state funeral by the Indian Government, an honor normally given to presidents and prime ministers, in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was widely considered a great tragedy within both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pà ©rez de Cuà ©llar, for example, said: â€Å"She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world.†Ã‚   When she was asked â€Å"What can we do to promote world peace?† Her answer was simple: â€Å"Go home and love your family.† That was Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa-our mother Teresa. Mother Teresa â€Å"Love is repaid by love alone.† Mother Teresa first read these words when she was eighteen years old while on her way to Ireland to become a nun. Sixty-nine years later before her death she must have realized that she was one of the most loved women in the world. If the Saint Teresa’s phrase has any literal meaning, there is possibly no one in our age who has deserved so much love in return as Mother Teresa. Anyone who has heard her story can attest to her greatness. This was a woman who felt being a devout nun, just wasn’t enough. She gave up her Sisters of Loreto robe for the blue and white sari of the poor, to aid and live among the destitute of Calcutta. Upon taking a vow of poverty, purity and obedience to start her new order, she told herself, â€Å"I’ll teach myself to beg no matter how much abuse and humiliation I have to endure† in order to help others. Her unwavering devotion to this cause came from her belief that her work was nothing less than a direct order from God. Her Childhood Mother Teresa's story begins in the small town of Skopje in Albania, Eastern Europe. She was born in Skopje on 27th August 1910 to a shopkeeper, Nikolle Bojaxhiu and his wife Drana. She was given the names Agnes Gonxha. The family always called her Gonxha, which means flower bud, because she was always plump and pink and cheerful. She was the youngest of three children, with a brother Lazar and sister Aga. They lived in a large house with a big garden. The Bojaxhiu family had a long tradition of success in crafts, fabric-dyeing and trade. Gonxhe was baptized in the Heart of Jesus Catholic Church and successfully completed elementary and high school years in church schools, where she was an active member of the drama section, the literary section, and the church chorus. Her parents were very caring and never turned away anyone who needed help. When Mother Teresa recalled her childhood she said ‘We were a united and very happy family.' Her greatest joy as a child came during church masses where she could sing, read and pray. Agnes attended mass every day, prayed and said the rosary every night. When Agnes was eight years old her father died. Her mother worked very hard to make sure the children were happy and Mother Teresa remembered her childhood as being ‘exceptionally happy.' Agnes’ mother continued to help others in need, seemingly unaware of her own condition. She would take care of alcoholic women in their neighborhood and helped another widow with six children raise her family. When that widow died, those six children became a part of the Bojaxhiu family. By looking back on Mother Teresa’s childhood now we cannot help but understand the effects of her mother’s values, charity and devotion. She grew up surrounded by faith and compassion and at age twelve received her first â€Å"calling from God† to help the poor. Upon hearing of this experience, her mother gave Agnes this advice, â€Å"Put your hands in His hands and walk all the way with Him.†Ã‚   So at 12, she joined an Abbey, and at 18 she became a member of the Loreto Order of nuns. She trained in Dublin, where the motherhouse of the Loreto Sisters was. She chose the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of Saint Thà ©rà ¨se of Lisieux. In December 1928 she began her journey to India and continued to Darjeeling, at the base of the Himalayan Mountains, where she would continue her training towards her religious vows. Soon after, on January 6, 1929 she arrived in Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, India to teach at a school for girls. In Calcutta, she worked as a school aid, teacher and principal for a middle-class high school for Bengali girls. During these years she could not help but be touched by the poverty and misery in the streets and slums around her. She started actively going to hospitals and slums where she became more and more dissatisfied with the state of the people around her and the efforts to help them. On September 10, 1946, on the long train ride to Darjeeling where she was to go on a retreat and to recover from suspected tuberculosis, something happened. She had a life-changing encounter with the Living Presence of the Will of God. Mother Teresa recalls: â€Å"I realized that I had the call to take care of the sick and the dying, the hungry, the naked, the homeless – to be God's Love in action to the poorest of the poor. That was the beginning of the Missionaries of Charity.† Read also  Summary : Love Is Never Silent She didn't hesitate, she didn't question. She asked permission to leave the Loreto congregation and to establish a new order of sisters. While the church recommended she join the Daughters of Saint Anna, who worked with the poor, Sister Teresa felt this was not nearly adequate to the calling she had received. She didn’t want to help the poor and retreat to a convent at night, but instead become one of the poor herself. She received that permission from Pope Pius XII. In 1948, at the age of 38, she exchanged her sister’s robe for the uniform of Calcutta’s poor and adopted a diet of rice and salt. The impoverished people of Calcutta were stunned by her presence among them. They could not understand why this European woman who spoke their language fluently would wash their babies, clean their wounds and educate their young. It was here in the streets of Calcutta where she was approached by one of her former students who made the remarkable request to join her. Mother Teresa was hesitant to invite someone else to take part in her calling because she wanted to make sure they understood the poverty that they would have to live in. Several weeks after Mother Teresa asked her former student to take time to think about it, the girl returned without any personal belongings or jewelry, wearing a sari, the uniform of the poor. She took Mother Teresa’s childhood name, Agnes as her own and became the first sister to join Mother Teresa’s calling. More sisters would join every month and by 1950, Sister Teresa had received approval from the Vatican to create another vow beyond her sister’s vows of poverty, purity and obedience. The fourth addition was, â€Å"To devote oneself out of abnegation to the care of the poor and needy who, crushed by want and destitution, live in conditions unworthy of human dignity.† With this vow, the Missionaries of Charity were born and its members were commanded to seek out the poor, abandoned, sick, infirm and dying and Sister Teresa became Mother Teresa. She wrote in her diary at this time that, â€Å"If the rich people can have the full service and devotion of so many nuns and priests, surely the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low can have the love and devotion of a few–The Slum Sister they call me, and I am glad to be just that for His love and glory.† In 1952 Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity began the work for which they have been noted ever since. Her order received permission from Calcutta officials to use a portion of the abandoned temple to Kali, the Hindu goddess of transition and destroyer of demons. Mother Teresa founded here the Kalighat Home for the Dying, which she named â€Å"Nirmal Hriday† (meaning â€Å"Pure Heart†). She and her fellow nuns gathered dying Indians off the streets of Calcutta and brought them to this home to care for them during the days before they died. Mother Teresa's first orphanage was started in 1953, while in 1957 she and her Missionaries of Charity began working with lepers. In the years following, her homes (she called them â€Å"tabernacles†) have been established in hundreds of locations in the world. The world came to know Mother Teresa after a 1969 BBC documentary on her work, which included footage of a potential miracle. Images of an area in the hospice too dark to show up on film appeared in a soft light after development. This public exposure led to growth of her order throughout India and later in the world. Soon after Cardinal Spellman from the United States visited her at the Motherhouse. Mother Teresa recalled, â€Å"He asked me where we lived. I told him, ‘Here in this room, your Eminence. This is our refectory. We move the tables and benches to the side.’ He wanted to know where the rest of our convent was, where we could study. ‘We study here, too, your Eminence,’ I said. Then I added, ‘And this is also our dormitory.’ When the Cardinal asked if we had a chapel, I brought him to the end of this room. ‘It is also our chapel, your Eminence’ I told him†¦I don’t know what he was thinking, but he began to smile.† Mother Teresa made no exceptions to her dedication. When asked what she expected of a sister she said, â€Å"Let God radiate and live his life in her and through her in the slums. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let her be a friend of the little children in the street. I would much rather they make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.† Mother Teresa's Wisdom Analyzing her deed and achievements, John Paul II asked: â€Å"Where did Mother Teresa find the strength to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart.† â€Å"I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord Himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?† â€Å"The poor give us much more than we give them. They’re such strong people, living day to day with no food. And they never curse, never complain. We don’t have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them. â€Å"There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Put your love for them in living action. For in loving them, you are loving God Himself.† â€Å"It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.† â€Å"To God there is nothing small. The moment we have given it to God, it becomes infinite.† â€Å"You have to be holy in your position as you are, and I have to be holy in the position that God has put me. So it is nothing extraordinary to be holy. Holiness is not the luxury of the few. Holiness is a simple duty for you and for me. We have been created for that.† Her Achievements In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul VI granted Mother Teresa's request to expand her order to other countries. Teresa's order started to rapidly grow, with new homes opening all over the globe. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, including Albania. In addition, the first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Today over one million workers worldwide volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa traveled to help the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become known internationally. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge . In 1971 Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Other awards bestowed upon her included a Kennedy Prize (1971), the Balzan prize (1978) for humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples, the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975), the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1994), honorary citizenship of the United States (November 16, 1996), and honorary degrees from a number of universities. In 1972 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, â€Å"for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace.† She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $6,000 funds be diverted to the poor in Calcutta, claiming the money would permit her to feed hundreds of needy for a year. In the same year, she was also awarded the Balzan Prize for promoting peace and brotherhood among the nations. At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools. Mother Teresa was granted a full state funeral by the Indian Government, an honor normally given to presidents and prime ministers, in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was widely considered a great tragedy within both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pà ©rez de Cuà ©llar, for example, said: â€Å"She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world.†Ã‚   When she was asked â€Å"What can we do to promote world peace?† Her answer was simple: â€Å"Go home and love your family.† That was Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa-our mother Teresa.