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By age 12 she was convinced that she should commit
herself to a religious life. She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of
Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.
Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham,
Ireland to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach
school children in India. She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate
in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan Mountains. She took her first religious vows
as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose the name Teresa.
Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was
increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta. The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and
death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946
plunged the city into despair and horror.
On 10 September 1946
during the train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat,
Mother Teresa received her “inspiration,”
her “call within a call.” On
that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus’ thirst for love and for
souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate His thirst became the
driving force of her life. Over the course of the next weeks and months, by
means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to her the desire of
His heart for “victims of love”
who would “radiate His love on souls.”
“Come be My light,” He
begged her. “I cannot go alone.”
He revealed His pain at the neglect of the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance
of Him and His longing for their love. He asked Mother Teresa to establish a
religious community, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to the service of the
poorest of the poor. Nearly two years of testing and discernment passed before
Mother Teresa received permission to begin. On August 17, 1948, she dressed for
the first time in a white, blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of
her beloved Loreto convent to enter the world of the poor.
After a short course
with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta
and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. On 21 December
she went for the first time to the slums. She visited families, washed the
sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and nursed
a woman dying of hunger and TB. She started each day in communion with Jesus in
the Eucharist and then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve Him in “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared
for.” After some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former
students.
On 7 October 1950 the
new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established in
the Archdiocese of Calcutta. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa began to send
her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted to the
Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a house in
Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania and,
eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through the
1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist countries,
including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.
In order to respond
better to both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa
founded the Missionaries of Charity
Brothers in 1963, in 1976 the contemplative
branch of the Sisters, in 1979 the Contemplative Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. Yet her inspiration was not
limited to those with religious vocations. She formed the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers,
people of many faiths and nationalities with whom she shared her spirit of
prayer, simplicity, sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love. This
spirit later inspired the Lay
Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in
1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus
Christi Movement for Priests as a “little
way of holiness” for those who desire to share in her charism and
spirit.
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During the years of
rapid growth the world began to turn its eyes towards Mother Teresa and the
work she had started. Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian Padmashri
Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honoured her work,
while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities. She
received both prizes and attention “for
the glory of God and in the name of the poor.”
The whole of Mother
Teresa’s life and labor bore witness to the joy of loving, the greatness and
dignity of every human person, the value of little things done faithfully and
with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. But there was
another heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death.
Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her, was her interior
life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being
separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing
for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.” The “painful night” of her soul, which
began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the
end of her life, led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God.
Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus, in His
painful and burning longing for love, and she shared in the interior desolation
of the poor.
During the last years
of her life, despite increasingly severe health problems, Mother Teresa
continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the
Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were
established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she
blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of
Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for
the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving
visitors and instructing her Sisters. On 5 September Mother Teresa’s earthly
life came to an end. She was given the honour of a state funeral by the
Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the
Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and
prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a
testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her
response to Jesus’ plea, “Come be My light,” made her a Missionary of
Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a symbol of compassion to the world, and a
living witness to the thirsting love of God.
Less than two years
after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness
and the favors being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her
Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her
heroic virtues and miracles.
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Some of her Quotes
“By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus. ”Small of stature, rocklike in faith,
"If I ever become a Saint -I will surely be one of 'darkness.' I will continually be absent from Heaven -to light the light of those in darkness on earth."
"For the first time in this 11 years -I have come to love the darkness, for I believe now that it is a part of a very, very small part of Jesus' darkness and pain on earth."
"If I ever become a Saint -I will surely be one of 'darkness.' I will continually be absent from Heaven -to light the light of those in darkness on earth."
"For the first time in this 11 years -I have come to love the darkness, for I believe now that it is a part of a very, very small part of Jesus' darkness and pain on earth."
