Mother Teresa Canonized a Saint

Mother Teresa Canonized a Saint

On September 4 of this year the Catholic Church celebrated the canonization of Mother Teresa.

She was born in Skopje, Macedonia, to Albanian parents who gave her the name Agnes. After losing her father at the age of eight, she grew close to her mother who taught her the virtue of charity. The girl who would become Mother Teresa felt the call to religious life at the age of twelve when she made a pilgrimage to a nearby church. Six years later, she decided to become a nun and joined the sisters of Loreto in Dublin. She took the name Sister Mary Teresa after Saint Therese of Lisieux.

The Loreto order sent her to Darjeeling, India, where she joined the novitiate. There she made her final profession as a Loreto nun and was thereafter known as Mother Teresa.
She began her renowned work in Calcutta in 1931, where she taught in Saint Mary’s High School and eventually became principal. While working there, Mother Teresa sought to end poverty through education. Her life path changed on September 10, 1946, when Christ spoke to her. She abandoned teaching and began to help the most impoverished people directly. Eventually she left the convent and took medical training to fulfill her goal of aiding “the unwanted, the unloved and the uncared for.”

Mother Teresa later founded a place for the dying and destitute in a dilapidated building that she had convinced the local government to donate to her. By October 1950, she had received approval for a new congregation known as the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa’s work developed rapidly from there; she founded a leper colony, a nursing home, a family clinic, an orphanage and a chain of mobile health clinics. Pope Paul VI granted the Missionaries of Charity the Degree of Praise in 1965, which allowed Mother Teresa to expand her congregation internationally. She started a charity in New York City and even secretly visited Lebanon where she aided people on both sides of a war.

Mother Teresa was awarded the Jewel of India, the Gold Medal of the Soviet Peace Committee, and in 1979, the Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonized on September 4, 2016, and Pope Francis presided over the canonization Mass. Catholics around the world are still celebrating and will forever remember and be inspired by her selfless service to thousands.

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” – Mother Teresa