Biography Of Mother Teresa – 112th birthday Today

Biography Of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa, also known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was born in Skopje in the Ottoman Empire (in today’s North Macedonia). At the age of 18 she left home to become a Roman Catholic nun and join the Loreto Sisters in Ireland. The Missionaries of Charity were founded by Mother Teresa in India in 1950. She was 40 years old. Her lifelong service to the poor in Calcutta (Calcutta) made her one of the most famous people in the world. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 2003 and canonized by Pope Francis I on September 4, 2016. She has often been defined by her followers as “the angel of mercy” and “the saint of the gutter” . She was a woman who listened to God’s call in such an extreme and personal way that she embarked on a path that gave up the creature comforts most of us crave.

Information About Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Date Of Birth: August 27, 1910

Feast Of Mother Teresa: 5 September

Feast Of Mother Teresa In Albania: 19 October

Canonization Day Of Mother Teresa: 4 September 2016

Beatification Of Mother Teresa: 19 October 2003

Revered: December 20, 2002

About Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was born Agnesa Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 27, 1910, the third daughter of the Bojaxhiu family. She was born in a family home in the center of Skopje, at 13 Pop Kocina Street. She was baptized in the Catholic Herz-Jesu-Kirche. In church schools, where she was an active member of the acting department, the literature department and the church choir, Gonxhe successfully completed elementary and high school. Overall, she and her older siblings had a happy childhood. The Bojaxhiu family can look back on a long history of success in crafts, dyeing and trading.

Six months later she was sent to the Loreto Monastery in Calcutta. She there she taught at the school and eventually she became the principal. As her bond with Jesus deepened, she felt her pain for the poorest. You experienced Jesus’ call to go and offer God’s love and serve the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. This led her to leave the relative safety of the school campus, sheltered from the most desperate poverty of the city, to live on the streets with the poorest of the poor.

About Mother Teresa’s Charities And Missionaries

Teresa asked and obtained permission from the Vatican to found a diocesan congregation that would become Missionaries of Charity after working for two years on the streets of Calcutta. “The poor, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers”, explained Teresa, “all those people who feel unwanted, unloved and neglected in society, people who have become a burden on society and others to avoid. “In Calcutta it started as a small order of 12 members.

In 2006, more than 4,000 nuns ran orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers on all six continents, caring for refugees, the blind, the disabled, the elderly, alcoholics, the sick, the homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famines.

In 1952 the city of Calcutta made space available for the first hospice. Mother Teresa, with the help of Indian officials, converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the sick. She opened another hospice, Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart), as well as a home for lepers called Shanti Nagar (City of Peace), and soon after an orphanage.

Recruits and voluntary donations began pouring in for the Order. The order had opened hospices, orphanages and hospitals for lepers throughout India in the 1960s. Mother Teresa was one of the first people to build AIDS homes.

Teresa’s order grew rapidly. New plants are being built around the world. Venezuela was the Order’s first outpost outside India. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania and later in several Asian, African and European countries including Albania.

Mother Teresa was known all over the world in the early 1970s. Malcolm Muggeridge’s 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God and her 1971 book of the same name brought her work to worldwide attention.

The crew felt that the documentary footage, shot in low light conditions, was unusable. However, upon returning from India, the film turned out to be extremely well-lit. Mother Teresa, Muggeridge said, performed a miracle of “divine light”.

In 1982, Mother Teresa persuaded Israelis and Palestinians to engage in skirmishes to avoid gunfire long enough to evacuate 37 mentally ill people from a besieged Beirut hospital.

As the walls of Eastern Europe fell, she extended her efforts to the communist countries that had previously opposed her, launching hundreds of initiatives. Mother Teresa also visited Ethiopia to help the starving, the victims of the Chernobyl radiation and the victims of the earthquake in Armenia. Mother Teresa first visited her homeland in 1991 and opened a Missionary Brothers of Charity home in Tirana, Albania.

In 1996 she led 517 missions in over 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity have grown from 12 to thousands serving the “poorest of the poor” in 450 locations around the world. In the United States, the first Missionaries of Charity house was organized in the South Bronx, New York.

Recognition And Acceptance

Mother Teresa India

More than a third of a century ago, Teresa received the Padma Shri in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding from the Government of India in 1969. Other Indian awards followed, including the Bharat Ratna (India’s highest civilian award) in 1980. The official biography of Teresa by Navin Chawla was published in 1992. On August 28, 2010, the Indian government issued a special coin. of 5 (the amount of money Teresa had when she arrived in India) to celebrate her 100th birthday.

Does Mother Teresa Count Elsewhere?

Teresa received the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding for services to South and East Asia. She had become an international star by the early 1970s. Teresa’s fame can be traced in part to Malcolm Muggeridge’s 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God and her 1971 book of the same name. In 1982 she was made an Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia by governments and civil organizations “for her service to the Australian nation and to humanity in general”.

Various awards have been bestowed by the United Kingdom and the United States, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983 and Honorary Citizenship of the United States on November 16, 1996. Teresa received the country’s Golden Honor from her native Albanian in 1994, but her acceptance of it, as well as the Haitian Legion of Honour, has been controversial. Teresa was reprimanded for apparently helping the Duvaliers and dishonest businessmen like Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell; They wrote to the Keating trial judge asking for leniency.

About Mother Teresa Aggravating Health And Death

Teresa died of a heart attack in 1983 while meeting Pope John Paul II in Rome. After her second seizure in 1989, she had a pacemaker. In 1991, she had heart problems after an attack of pneumonia while she was in Mexico.

  • She has offered to step down as leader of the Order. The vote was by secret ballot. Except for her, all the sisters voted for Mother Teresa to stay. Mother Teresa chose to remain at the forefront of the Missionaries of Charity.
  • Mother Teresa broke her collarbone in a fall in April 1996. In August she was diagnosed with malaria and suffered heart failure. She had heart surgery, but her health was deteriorating.
  • Believing that Mother Teresa had been attacked by a demon, the Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D’Souza, ordered a priest to perform an exorcism. He consented to the exorcism.

Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity numbered over 4,000 nuns, a fraternity of 300 people and over 100,000 lay volunteers who were carrying out 610 missions in 123 countries at the time of her death. These included hospices and homes for HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis patients, soup kitchens, family and child care services, orphanages and schools.

The Indian government honored Mother Teresa with a state funeral, an honor normally reserved for Presidents and Prime Ministers, in recognition of her service to the poor of all faiths in India. Her death was widely viewed as a great tragedy in both secular and religious culture.

Awards And Commemorations

Mother Teresa received the 1962 Magsaysay Prize for Peace and International Understanding. Paul VI awarded her the first Peace Prize from Pope John XXIII in 1971. Other awards she received include the Kennedy Prize (1971) and the Balzan Prize (1978) for Humanity, Unity and Fraternity Among Nations, the Albert Schweitzer International Award (1975), the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985) and the Congressional Gold Medal (1994), Honorary citizenship of the United States on 16 only two people who received this honor during their lifetime).

In 1973 Teresa won the Templeton Prize. In 1981, Jean-Claude Duvalier awarded her the Legion of Honour. She was the first and only living person to appear on an Indian postage stamp.

About The Museum Of Memory Of Mother Teresa

A memorial hall (museum) was set up in the Feudal Tower of Skopje, where she played as a child. The museum houses a large number of pieces from Mother Teresa’s life in Skopje, as well as relics of her from her later years. In the memorial hall there is a model of their family house built by the artist Vojo Georgievski.

Next to the memorial hall there is an area with a statue of Mother Teresa, a memorial park and a fountain.

On the memorial plaque of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa’s house was on the edge of Skopje’s shopping mall. “Here Gondza Bojadzic – Mother Teresa – was born on August 26, 1910,” says the commemorative plaque dedicated in March 1998.

Birthday – April 26

Who Is Mother Teresa?

Mother Teresa was a nun, missionary and founder of the Order of Missionaries of Charity who dedicated her life to serving the poor.

Five Facts About Mother Teresa

  • She was born in Skopje, Macedonia
  • She became a nun at the age of 18
  • You have lived and worked in India for 17 years
  • She was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
  • She had incredible organizational skills along with her compassion and love for humanity
  • Inspirational quotes from Mother Teresa
  • “Be faithful in the little things, because therein lies your strength”.
  • “We ourselves have the feeling that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be smaller because of that missing drop. “
  • “Not all of us can achieve great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
  • “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”
  • “Love cannot be left alone, it has no meaning. Love must be put into action and that action is service.”

Biography Of Mother Teresa

Early Life

She was born to Albanian parents Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu in Macedonia. Her father was a businessman and her devoted family was heavily involved in the Catholic Church. Her father died when she was eight and her mother taught her the importance of caring for the sick and poor.

turning point

She was educated at the nearby convent school and at the age of 12 she took a trip to the Church of the Black Madonna in Letnice. She later became a nun and went to Dublin, Ireland to join the Loreto Sisters. She became known as Sister Maria Teresa.

Mission And Work

His novitiate began in Darjeeling, India. She was sent to Saint Mary’s High School for Girls in Kolkata, where she taught girls from the city’s poorest families. Since she would be based in India, she learned to speak the local languages ​​fluently.

When she took perpetual vows to live a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience, she became known as “Mother,” as was customary in the Loreto order. In 1944 she was promoted to principal of the school. Her idea was to banish poverty from student life through education.

Within a few years, however, she was able to fulfill her heart’s desire to serve directly the poor and sick in the city’s slums. It was very difficult to get permission to leave the monastery and take on her mission, but after a long period of lobbying she was successful. She went into the city’s dreadful slums, armed with some medical knowledge and great compassion, to tend to the sick and poor.

8 Things You Should Know About Mother Teresa

On Sunday, Pope Francis will canonize Mother Teresa during a Roman Catholic canonization service in Vatican City. * Here are nine fun facts about the Nobel laureate who became famous for her service to the poor and dying:

1. Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in present-day Macedonia. At the age of 18 she left home to join the Loreto Sisters, a group of sisters in Ireland. There she took the name of Sister Maria Theresa from Saint Therese of Lisieux. A year later, in 1929, Mother Teresa moved to India and taught at a Catholic girls’ school.

2. In 1946, Mother Teresa received what she later described as a “call within a call.” She said Jesus spoke to her and told her to stop teaching to work in the slums of Kolkata and help the poorest and sickest people in the city. In 1950 she received Vatican recognition for the Missionaries of Charity, a group of nuns who put aside chastity, poverty and obedience and “ministered freely to the poorest of the poor.” By the late 1970’s, Missionaries of Charity had offices in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States.

3. Mother Teresa and her religious order received international attention in 1967 when the famous journalist Malcolm Muggeridge interviewed her for a BBC television programme. Due to the popularity of the interview, a year later Muggeridge traveled to Calcutta to film a documentary about Theresa’s “House of the Dying” called Something Beautiful for God (Muggeridge also wrote a book of the same name in 1971).

4. Throughout her life, Mother Teresa has received more than 120 prestigious awards and recognitions. In 1971 Paul VI awarded Mother Teresa receiving the First Peace Prize from Pope John XXIII. In 1979 you received the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee writes in its statement: “By awarding the prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee expressed its appreciation for Mother Teresa’s work in helping suffering humanity. This year the world has turned its back on the plight of children and refugees in these categories Mother Teresa has served so selflessly for many years.” She also received the highest civilian honor in the United States in 1985, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

5. During her 1979 Nobel Prize lecture, Mother Teresa called abortion the “greatest destroyer of peace”:

Let’s talk about peace. These are things that break the peace, but I think the biggest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it’s straight war, straight murder, straight murder by the mother herself. And we read in the scriptures, because God says very clearly: Even if a mother forgets her child – I will not forget you – I have carved you on the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of his hand, so close to him that the unborn child was carved in the hand of God. And that’s what hits me the most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible – but even if he could forget – I won’t forget you. And today the greatest cure – the greatest destroyer of peace – is abortion. And we who are here – our parents wanted us. We wouldn’t be here if our parents did this to us. We want our children, we love them, but what about the millions. Many people are very, very concerned about children in India, children in Africa, where many are dying, maybe because of the lower limbs.

6. Mother Teresa was often denounced by the laity for her opposition to contraception and abortion. However, she has also been widely criticized for allowing her charity to subjugate the poor and for potential mismanagement of charitable funds. Although she used her fame to raise tens of millions of dollars for her charity, the orphanages and care centers run by her religious order were often poor. After visiting Mother Teresa’s death house in 1994, Robin Fox wrote about her experience in the British medical journal The Lancet. Fox reported that doctors only visited patients occasionally (assistance was provided mainly by untrained volunteers) and that pain relief for the dying was inadequate, causing them unnecessary suffering. In 2008, another observer reported: “I was shocked to see this neglect. The needles were washed in cold water and the inmates were given reused and expired medicines. There were people who had a chance to live if properly cared for.” .

7. Mother Teresa was also criticized by Christians for downplaying evangelization and for maintaining universalistic views of salvation. For example, in her book Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations and Prayers, she says:

Our goal is to bring God and his love of him to the poorest of the poor, regardless of their race or creed. Our distinction of help is not belief but necessity. We never try to convert those we receive to Christianity, but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence, and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists or agnostics in return become better people, simply better, we will be happy. It is important for the individual to which church he belongs. If that person thinks and believes that this is the only way to reach God for him or her, then this is how God enters their life: her life. If he knows no other way and has no doubts so that he doesn’t have to search, then this is the way to his salvation.

When a Catholic priest asked her if she tried to convert people, she replied: “Yes, I am converting. I convert you to a better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant or a better Catholic or a better parsi or a better. Sikh or better Buddhist. And after you have found God, it’s up to you to do what God wants you to do. ‘”

8. After her death, Mother Teresa’s letters reveal that she spent nearly 50 years in a crisis of faith, sometimes doubting the existence of God and often feeling her absence in her life. Her absence became evident around 1948, shortly after he began serving the poor in Calcutta, and lasted until her death in 1997. As David Van Biema wrote in Time Magazine:

In more than 40 messages, many of which have never been published, she complains of the “drought”, the “darkness”, the “loneliness” and the “torture” to which she is subjected. She compares the experience to hell and once says that she pushed her to doubt the existence of heaven and even God. She is very aware of the discrepancy between her inner state of her and the public aspect of her. “The smile”, she writes, is “a mask” or “a cloak that covers everything”. Likewise, she wonders if she is involved in verbal deception. “I spoke as if my heart were in love with God: tender and personal love,” she points out to a counselor. “If you had been [there], you would have said: ‘What hypocrisy.’

* Why does an evangelical site like TGC write about a person who has religious views that we find inconsistent with the gospel? There are two main reasons why I think evangelicals should know Mother Teresa: First, she remains a popular historical figure. During her lifetime, she was named 18 times in Gallup’s annual survey of most admired men and women as one of the 10 most admired women worldwide by Americans and ranked first multiple times in the 1980s and ‘ 90 at Place. She also ranked # 1 on Gallup’s list of the Most Admired People of the 20th Century in a 1999 poll of Americans. Secondly, the name of Mother Teresa has become for many people synonymous with Christian charity. For these reasons we should know something about this Calcutta nun. While we should recognize Mother Teresa as a commendable advocate of abortion who passionately cares for the poor

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