Mother Theresa

 

        Mother Theresa was internationality respected for her work to relive the suffering of the poor, the sick and dying. She began her work of helping the desperately poor of India by bringing dying person from the streets into a home, where they cloud die in peace and dignity. She also established an orphanage. Through her untiring effort she succeeded in forming a congregation of sisters whose work has now spread to five continents.

        Mother Theresa was born in Skipje, Albania, on August 27, 1910, and was named Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhini. She left her home at the age of 18 to join the Institution of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dublin. She entered the order of the Sister of Our Lady of  Loreto when she was 18 years old. She was sent to Calcutta by the Sister of Loreto and she became a Geography teacher in a school Calcutta. While travelling on a train on September 10, 1946, she  heard the cries of some sick and helpless people, which inspired her to help the poor. This experience she described as a "call within a call" to help the desperately poor of India.

        In early 1948, the year she became an Indian citizen, she asked permission to leave her convent and Sister Agnes became Theresa. She moved into the city’s slums and started nursing to help the destitute in Calcutta. She donned a blue trimmed white sari, which became the uniform of her Missionaries of charity, founded on October 07, 1950. The Missionaries of Charity now number nearly 3000 sisters of various nationalities who work on five continents. They are helped by about 400 brothers and thousands of lay volunteers, who run 380 hospices, leper colonies and orphanages, including 160 India.

        

        Mother Theresa won many awards for her dedicated work in serving the poorest of the poor, 

*She was award Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1962.

* She was awarded the first john XXIII peace Prize in 1971 by Pope John Paul. 

* She was honoured with the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize for International Understanding in 1972, 

* The Templeton Prize in 1973,

* The Albert Schweitzer Prize in 1975, 

* The Pacem in Terris award in 1976

* The Balzon prize in 1978

* She award Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and Indian’s highest civilian decoration a year later.

* Order of Merit  in 1983

* Medal of Freedom in 1985

* Women of the world in 1989

* Golden Honour of the National  (Albania) in 1994

* Honorary citizenship Of USA in 1996

        Mother Theresa died in 1997 at the age of 87. She ended her life in Calcutta, the city that had inspired her as am 18 years old, to established her missionaries of Charity Order. Although Mother Theresa is on more, the good work she began lives on, as the Order’s homes, which first started in India, have spread to 87 countries. "A drop of deliverance in an ocean of suffering" is the single phrase she often used describe her life’s work.