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Contributor: Suzanne Riordan. Lesson ID: 13134
Declared a Catholic saint in 2016, Mother Teresa is famous for caring for the poor and dying in India. But some people criticize her work and say she was not saintly at all! Who's right? You decide!
Imagine you're a poor, older man living on the streets of a crowded city.
You have no home, no family, no money.
You haven't eaten in the past two days. You feel sick and weak.
You lay down on the roadside and wonder what will happen to you.
It's not likely. Many people die on these streets, and no one ever misses them. Maybe you will be one of them...you close your eyes and await your sad and lonely end.
Suddenly, a kind voice speaks to you. A soft hand touches your head. It's the first gentle touch you've felt in many years. You open your eyes. A smiling face looks down at you.
"Who are you?" you ask, thinking maybe you have died and are seeing an angel!
"I'm a Missionary of Charity," the young woman says, "and I'm going to take you to our home, where you'll be washed and fed and cared for. Would you like to go?"
Weakly, you nod your head. Tears stream down your face at the thought that there is someone in this world who cares...
Mother Teresa left a quiet, comfortable life as a Catholic nun teaching in a private school to live and work among the poorest of the poor.
Watch the following video for a short introduction to Mother Teresa and the work of the order (group of nuns) she started the Missionaries of Charity.
Let's go back to the beginning of her life.
Mother Teresa's name as a child was Agnes Bojaxhiu. She was born in what is now called North Macedonia (once part of Yugoslavia).
She had loving parents and an older brother and sister. You can see pictures of her family and her as a young woman in these 14 Vintage Photos of Mother Teresa Show A Saint In The Making.
There was sadness in her young life as well, though. Her father died when she was only eight years old. Her family was not rich, and they had to work hard to get by after her father's death.
As a young girl, Agnes was taught to love God above all things. She was very active in her church, run by a Catholic order of priests called the Jesuits. They sent missionaries worldwide, and Agnes began to feel that God was calling her to a missionary life.
After much prayer and reflection, Agnes decided to become a Catholic nun.
It means that she would devote her whole life to serving God, taking three vows.
She chose an order of nuns based in Ireland because she knew they had missions in India, and that was where she thought God wanted her to go.
In September 1928, she went to join the Loreto Sisters in Ireland and was given a new name: Sister Mary Teresa.
Many Catholic orders of nuns and priests give people entering their order a new name to signify that they're starting a new life. Usually, it's the name of a saint.
So, in Agnes's case, it was both the Virgin Mary and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, a young lady from France who taught a simple way of being close to God by doing little things with great love. Agnes would come to follow her example very closely.
After some training, Agnes — now called Sister Teresa — was sent to India. She was assigned a teaching position in a school for girls, and she was an excellent teacher. She was so good that the order kept her there for twenty years, making her the school principal. It looked like she might stay there for the rest of her life.
But something extraordinary happened to change that.
Later, she would call it "the call within a call." The first "call" was when she understood that God was calling her to be a religious sister. The second was a call to a new mission to serve the "poorest of the poor."
It happened on a train trip across India. Sister Teresa understood that God was calling her to leave her comfortable life and go into the streets to serve the poor and help them know God's love.
It took several years for her to get permission to leave the convent and start on this new mission. Then, one day in 1948, she walked out of the convent's gate and never returned.
She put on a white sari (a traditional Indian dress) with a blue border and began to serve people experiencing poverty in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Some of her previous students joined her, and that was the beginning of her order of nuns called the Missionaries of Charity.
As the head of a new order, she was now Mother instead of Sister. For her new sisters, Mother Teresa added one more vow to the three mentioned above.
She quickly discovered that many people were dying, alone and uncared for, in the streets of Calcutta. In 1952, she started the Kalighat Home for the Dying to care for people considered untouchables in Indian society lovingly.
Learn more about Mother Teresa's work in the video below.
Today, there are over 6,000 Missionaries of Charity. They are in many different countries all over the world. They care for refugees, sick people, the mentally ill, abandoned children, lepers, and older people.
They run soup kitchens for the hungry and schools for poor children. They never charge anyone for their services, never take government money, and never ask for donations.
Watch some of these Missionaries of Charity at work in the following video segment.
Mother Teresa's good work was recognized by many people worldwide. Many world leaders wanted to meet and help her in her work.
She was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, and many other organizations honored her as a great humanitarian. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. In all, she was given over 120 major awards!
Here are just a few.
Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 in Kolkata, India. Fifteen thousand people attended her funeral.
Now that you've learned some things about Mother Teresa head over to the Got It? section, where you'll review the facts of her life and pretend you are one of the poor people to whom she ministered!
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