Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa (baptized August 27, 1910, Skopje, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire [now in North Macedonia]—died September 5, 1997, Calcutta [now Kolkata], India; canonized September 4, 2016; feast day September 5) was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly to the destitute of India. She was the recipient of numerous honors, including the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace. Long regarded as a “living saint,” she was formally recognized as one by the Roman Catholic Church in 2016, less than two decades after her death.

Early life

She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910. The daughter of an ethnic Albanian grocer, she went to Ireland in 1928 to join the Sisters of Loreto at the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and sailed only six weeks later to India as a teacher. Upon making her vows, she chose the name Teresa in honor of the 19th-century French Carmelite nun St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She taught for 17 years at the Loreto Sisters’ school in Calcutta (Kolkata).

Founding the Missionaries of Charity

In 1946 Sister Teresa experienced her “call within a call,” which she considered divine inspiration to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. She then moved into the poor districts she had observed while teaching. In 1948 municipal authorities, upon her petition, gave her a pilgrim hostel near the sacred temple of the Hindu goddess Kali, where she founded her order, the Missionaries of Charity.

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Sympathetic companions soon flocked to Teresa’s aid. Dispensaries and outdoor schools were organized. Mother Teresa (as she was now called) adopted Indian citizenship, and her Indian nuns all donned the sari as their religious habit (or uniform). In 1950 her order was formally recognized as a religious institute under the oversight of the archdiocese of Calcutta, and in 1965 it became a pontifical congregation (subject only to the pope). In 1952 she established Nirmal Hriday (“Place for the Pure of Heart”), a hospice where people with terminal illnesses could die with dignity. Her order also opened numerous centers serving people who are blind or elderly and those with disabilities. Under Mother Teresa’s guidance, the Missionaries of Charity built a colony for people with leprosy, called Shanti Nagar (“Town of Peace”), near Asansol, India.

A living saint and a Nobel laureate

In 1962 the Indian government awarded Mother Teresa the Padma Shri, one of its highest civilian honors, for her services to the people of India. Pope Paul VI on his trip to India in 1964 gave her his ceremonial limousine, which she immediately raffled to help finance Shanti Nagar. She was summoned to Rome in 1968 to found a home for the poor there, staffed primarily with Indian nuns. In recognition of her ministry, she was honored on January 6, 1971, by Paul VI, who awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work, and the following year the Indian government conferred on her the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honor.

Reputation and canonization

In her later years Mother Teresa spoke out against divorce, contraception, and abortion, in keeping with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. She also suffered ill health and had a heart attack in 1989. In 1990 she resigned as head of the order but was returned to office by a nearly unanimous vote—the lone dissenting voice was her own. A worsening heart condition forced her retirement, and the order chose the Indian-born Sister Nirmala as her successor in 1997.

At the time of Mother Teresa’s death, her order included hundreds of centers in more than 90 countries with some 4,000 nuns and hundreds of thousands of lay workers. Within two years of her death, the process to declare her a saint was begun, and Pope John Paul II issued a special dispensation to expedite the process of canonization. She was beatified on October 19, 2003, reaching the ranks of the blessed in what was then the shortest time in the history of the church. She was canonized by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016.

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Mother Teresa’s letters and legacy

Although Mother Teresa displayed cheerfulness and a deep commitment to God in her daily work, her letters (which were collected and published in 2007) indicate that she did not feel God’s presence in her soul during the last 50 years of her life. The letters reveal the suffering she endured and her feeling that Jesus had abandoned her at the start of her mission. Continuing to experience a spiritual darkness, she came to believe that she was sharing in Christ’s Passion, particularly the moment in which Christ asks, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Despite this hardship, Mother Teresa integrated the feeling of absence into her daily religious life and remained committed to her faith and her work for Christ.

Her legacy has not been without criticism, especially as the church prepared for her canonization in 2016. Some accused her order of emotionally exploiting vulnerable people and covertly baptizing dying Hindus or Muslims in their care. Mother Teresa’s adherence to Catholic dogma on abortion and contraception was also criticized, especially given the evidence that access to birth control reduces poverty rates. Others have doubted the authenticity of one of the healings attributed to her intercession after her death (which was also one of the miracles that put her on the fast track to official sainthood). Still others accused her of romanticizing poverty and suffering.

Some of her defenders believed that the intensity of criticism stemmed from how quickly her canonization occurred. Nevertheless, that event was treated with celebration in India as well as Rome. For many, Mother Teresa remained an icon of the spirit of charity and compassion.

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