Pictorial Presentation

Mother Teresa, an icon of the Good Samaritan, went everywhere to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor. Not even conflict and war could stand in her way.
(Pope John Paul II in his homily at her Beatification, 19 October 2003)

Family
Mother Teresa Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu was born on 26 August 1910.

Her father Nikola, a well-respected local businessman, died when she was about eight years old.

Her sister Age, her brother Lazar, and Gonxha.

We were a beautiful, united family.

(Blessed Teresa of Calcutta)

Family

At age 18, Gonxha left home to enter the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland.

Her mother Drana.

Her mothers parting message was, Put your hand in His (Jesus) hand, walk alone with Him and never look back. She never saw her mother again.
Gonxha at 18.

Loreto
Gonxha arrived in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. After two years of formation in the novitiate in Darjeeling, Sr. Teresa made her first vows in May 1931. She was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta and taught at St. Mary's Bengali Medium School for girls. Among other responsibilities, the zealous young religious took charge of another Loreto school, St. Teresa's Primary Bengali Medium School. In May 1937, Sr. Teresa made her final profession as a Loreto nun and reassumed her duties at St. Mary's. She taught catechism and geography and in 1944 became the principal of the school.

Call Within a Call

On 10 September 1946, on the way to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Sr. Teresa received what she termed a call within a call.

Over the course of the next months, by means of interior locutions and several interior visions, Jesus asked her to establish a religious community that would be dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor and so satiate His thirst for love and for souls.

Call Within a Call

Jesus: I want...Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children. The poor I want you to bring to me.

Mother Teresa: In 1946 I was going to Darjeeling, to make my retreat. It was in that train, I heard the call to give up all and follow Him into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. I knew it was His will, and that I had to follow Him. There was no doubt that it was going to be His work. But I waited for the decision of the Church.

Call Within a Call

In December 1948, alone, Mother Teresa started her work in the slums, visiting the sick, gathering and instructing street children, and gradually opening her first slum school and dispensary in the Motijhil slums.

In her diary she wrote: Today I learned a good lesson -- the poverty of the poor must be often so hard for them. When rounding looking for a home -- I walked till my legs & my arms ached -- I thought how they must also ache in body and soul looking for home -- food -- help.... "Of my free choice, my God, and out of love for You -- I desire to remain... My God give me courage now -- this moment.

Kalighat
In 1952, Mother Teresa opened the first house for the dying in Kalighat and called it Nirmal Hriday (Pure Heart). Nirmal Hriday is commonly referred to as Mother Teresas first love and it may also be considered her last love, as there she saw the vision of her inspiration realized. For her, each sick and dying patient was Jesus in distressing disguise and there she could put her love for Him into action.

The home is meant only for the street cases and cases that no hospital wants or for people who have absolutely no one to take care of them.
(Blessed Teresa of Calcutta)

Shishu Bhavan
In 1953, the first Shishu Bhavan opened, a home for abandoned children.

Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things -to love and to be loved. (Blessed Teresa of Calcutta)

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

For me Mother Teresa embodies Christian love in action. Her face shines with the love of Christ on which her whole life is centered, and her words carry that message to a world which never needed it so much.

(Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God)

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

At his homily for her Beatification, Pope John Paul II said: In her we honor one of the most important figures of our time. Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and tireless benefactor of humanity. Let us welcome her message and follow her example. (Pope John Paul II, 19 October 2003)

Blessed Mothers Grace in India

Teresa received Vatican permission on 7 October 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; by 1997 it had grown to more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.

Blessed Mothers Grace in India

Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food. As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.

Blessed Mothers Grace on World

As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth. The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuela in 1965 with five sisters. Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968.

during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and 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, and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the vocational aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.[

Blessed Mothers Grace on World

In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary ceasefire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients. When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." She visited the Soviet republic of Armenia following the 1988 Spitak earthquake, and met with Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York; by 1984 the order operated 19 establishments throughout the country.

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

Mother Teresas Slippers and Her Nobel Peace Prize

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from societythat poverty is so hurt able [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult."

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

Mother Teresa was honored by both governments and civilian organizations. She was appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1982, "for service to the community of Australia and humanity at large. The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on 16 November 1996. Mother Teresa's Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honor of the Nation in 1994. Mother Teresa had first been recognized by the Indian government more than a third of a century earlier when she was awarded the Padma Shri in 1962 and the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1969. She continued to receive major Indian awards in subsequent years, including India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna , in both 1972 and 1980

In 1962, Mother Teresa received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. The citation said that "the Board of Trustees recognizes her merciful cognizance of the abject poor of a foreign land, in whose service she has led a new congregation"

Mothers Bereavement Of Earthly Grace

In March 1997, she blessed her newly-elected successor Sister Nirmala as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity and then made one 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 5th September Mother Teresas earthly life came to an end. She was given state funeral by Govt. 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.

Sainthood For Mother

Less than 2 years after her death, in view of Mother Teresas widespread reputation of holiness and favors being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her CAUSE OF CANONIZATION. On 20th December 2002, he approved the decrees confirming her heroic virtue and a miracle attributed to her intercession. On 19th October 2003, the HOLY FATHER beatified Mother Teresa before a joyful and a prayerful crowd of at least 300,000 assembled in St. Peters Square in a spirit of thanksgiving to God for the Gift of her life and holiness. The gathering reflected all the diversity of the world which Mother Teresa had touched in her life time, united their precisely because of the loving influence of one rightly called MOTHER.

Quotes And Qoutations

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. Mother Teresa Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. Mother Teresa I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. Mother Teresa

Quotes For Her

The relics of the saints are traces of that invisible but real presence which sheds light upon the shadows of the world and reveals the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst. -P. Benedict XVI In Mother Teresas smile, words and deeds, Jesus again walked the streets of the world as The Good Samaritan- Pope John Paul II Though she was a World Citizen, she was particularly Indian in the true spirit of our Culture. Such a one as her rarely walks on the Surface of Earth- K R Narayanan(Former President of India)