Mother Teresa
St. Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Bojaxhiu in 1910 to an Albanian Catholic family in Skopje, Macedonia. At 18, she joined the Loreto Sisters of Dublin in Ireland. After her novitiate in Darjeeling, India, she taught at a Catholic high school for girls in Calcutta, and in 1937 took her final vows. She went on to become the school’s principal, before leaving in 1946 to answer a second calling to serve the poorest of Calcutta. In 1950, she founded Missionaries of Charity with 12 members. Throughout the 1950s and ‘60s she established an orphanage, leper colony, nursing home, and health clinics. In 1971, she opened the first American House of Charity in New York. She was awarded the Jewel of India and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in “bringing help to suffering humanity.” When she died in 1997, there were 4,000 Missionaries of Charity sisters and 610 foundations in 123 countries worldwide. Mother Teresa was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016.
