Mother Teresa Essay, Research Paper

Agnes Gonxa Bojaxhiu was born August 26, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. Her family belonged to the Albanian Community. She was baptized as a Catholic, although the majority of the Albanians were Muslim. Her father taught her first lessons in charity. Totally unexpected, when Agnes was nine, her father died. Drana, mother of Agnes, raised the three children alone. Throughout Agnes?s childhood her mother kept them active in the Catholic religion. Everyday they Agnes and her family would go to church and prayed the rosary every day in May.

Agnes enjoyed church; she liked to read, pray, and loved to sing. A great part of her time also went to the Legion of Mary. She helped a father, who had difficulties with the language, to teach catechism and read about Slovenian and Croatian missionaries in India. At the age of twelve Agnes felt her first desire to spend her time doing God?s work. At the age of 18 Agnes decide that she would be a missionary for India. On Assumption day in 1928 she went to she was going to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, who were very active in India. After weeping with her sister, Aga, and her Mother Agnes left towards a place close to Dublin Ireland, where the head quarters for the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto. She received the close of a Sister and chose the name of Sister Teresa, in Memory of Little Teresa of Lisieux. After all of this she was on her way to India. It was a long journey but in 1929 she and some other sisters reached Calcutta, India. Then form there they traveled to Darjeeling, at the feet of the Himalayas, where they would receive their training. After making her vows she is sent back to Calcutta to study to be a teacher. Whenever she could she helped the sick. After her studying was over she became a teacher. The children grew to love her. For her care and love they began to call her ?Ma?. In 1937 she was named headmaster of a secondary school for middle class girls. Her and the girls went regularly to the hospitals and slums of India.

On the tenth of September sister Teresa left for the most important journey of her life. She said that God had actually told her to leave the convent and help the poorest of the poor, thus gaining the name ?Saint of the Gutters,? She proposed her leave to her superior, who sent her to the archbishop of Calcutta. He talked it over with Father Henry, who knew sister Teresa very well. They agreed that she must pray over this decision for at least a year and then they will think about it. Sister Teresa did not consider this the right response though. After a year Sister Teresa renewed her intention. The archbishop wanted to grant her the permission but decided that it would be better if he ask the permission from Rome and from the mother general in Dublin.

Sister Teresa was thirty-eight when she finally got to say goodbye to her fellow sisters and religious Loreto robes. She went to the slums of Calcutta. She helped to wash the babies, and to clean wounds. The people of the slums didn?t know who this European woman was that spoke fluent Bengali. They thought she was an angel. Sister Teresa taught the children to read and write and how to have good hygiene. Every night Sister Teresa would sleep with the Sisters of the Poor. At noon all the children come to get a glass of milk and a bar of soap if they need it, but most off all, many came to here the stories about God Sister Teresa would tell them.

When a Muslim left town for Pakistan and sold his house for a cheap price the sisters bought it and it became the famous ?Mother House?. Sister Teresa was then given the name Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa and her Sisters founded the Missionaries of Charity. The Missionaries of Charity grew from 12 sisters in India to over 3,000 in 517 missions throughout 100 countries worldwide.

In 1952 she founded the Nirmal Hriday Home for the dying in Calcutta. She and her sisters would care for the dying people that they found on the streets. It didn?t matter if they were dying of AIDS or Leprosy. She wanted them to be able to die in peace and with dignity. Her work for the sick and poor won the respect of the world and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Over the last two decades, Mother had suffered from heart problems. She suffered a heart attack during her visit with Pope John Paul the 2nd in 1983. There was another, and more serious, heart attack in 1989. Mother Teresa also suffered from malaria and a chest infection in the last decade.

On September 5th 1997 Mother Teresa died around 9:30 in the evening. She died in the Mother House in Calcutta. She devoted her whole life to helping the poor and sick. Mother Teresa will be remembered in many peoples? hearts.

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