Mother Theresa Essay, Research Paper

Mother Theresa Mother Theresa dedicated every day of her adult life caring for “the dying, crippled, the mentally ill, and the unloved.” She fed and sheltered them, cleaned their wounds, but what is most important, is that she made them feel good, loved, and wanted. Mother Teresa’s Life Mother Teresa was born August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu from Albanian parents: Nikolle and Drandafille Bojaxhiu. Her father was a well known contractor and her mother was a housewife, and She was the youngest of three children. Mother Teresa’s Family strongly believed in the Catholic faith. They prayed every evening and went to church almost everyday. It was her family’s generosity and care for the poor that made a great impact on Mother Teresa’s life. By the age of 12, she had made up her mind, she realized that her Calling in life was aiding the poor. At age 18, she decided to become a nun, and traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to join the Sisters of Loretto. After about a year in Ireland, she then left to join the Loretto convent in the Indian city of Darjeeling, where she spent 17 years teaching and then rose to the position of principal of St. Mary’s high school in Calcutta. In 1946, Mother Teresa’s life was changed forever. While riding a train to the mountain town of Darjeeling to recover from suspected tuberculosis, she said that she received a calling from God “to serve among the poorest of the poor.” Less then a year later she received permission from the Catholic Church to leave her order and move to Calcutta’s slums to set up her first school. One of Mother Theresa’s former students “Sister Agnus” became Mother Teresa’s first follower. Others soon followed, and they rose to create their own order of nuns called the Missionaries of Charity. The order was founded on Oct. 7 1950, the feast of the Holy Rosary. To set herself with the poor she choose to wear a plain white Dress with a blue border and a cross pinned to her left shoulder. Their mission was to care for the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled,the blind, the lepers; all those people who felt unwanted, unloved and uncared for throughout society.With the help of government officials, she converted a portion of an abandoned temple into “Kalighat Home for the Dying”, where even the poorest people would die with dignity. Soon after she opened up Nirmal Hriday (”Pure Heart”), another home for the dying, and Shanti Nagar (Town of Peace), a leper colony and later her first orphanage. Mother Teresa and her followers continued opening houses all over Indiacaring for the poor, and making them feel wanted. But her Order’s work spread across the world after 1965, when Pope John Paul VI allowed Mother Theresa to globally expand her order. In 1982, at the height of the siege in Beirut she convinced both warring sides to stop the war so she could rescue 37 sick children trapped inside the city. Mother Teresa became a symbol of commitment to the poor and suffering. She was probably the most admired women of all time. Over the course of Mother Theresa’s life she won so many rewards and prices for her outstanding work and she used her reputation to travel all over the world raising money to support her causes. In 1962, she received the Pandma Shri prize for “extraordinary services.” In 1971, Pope John Paul VI honored Mother Teresa by awarding her the first Pope John XXXIII Peace Prize. In 1972, the Government of India presents her with the Jawaharlel Nehru Award for Internationa Understanding. In 1979, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1985, President Reagan presented her the Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award, and in 1996, she became only the fourth person in the world to receive an honorary U.S. citizenship. When she received the Nobel Prize she wore her same $1 dress and convinced the committee to cancel a dinner in her honor, using the money instead to “feed 400 poor

children for a year in India.” Today Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity has over 570 missionaries all over the world, made up of 4,000 nuns, a brotherhood of 300 members and over 100,000 volunteers running homes for AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis patients, soup kitchens, orphanages, and schools. Mother Teresa’s health was deteriorating, partly from age, part from the conditions where she was living, and part of it was from her trips all over the world, opening new houses and raising money for the poor. In 1985, she had a heart attack while in Rome visiting Pope John Paul II. In 1989, she suffered another almost fatal heart attack and had a pacemaker implanted. In 1991, she caught pneumonia in Tijuana, Mexico which lead to heart failure. In 1996, Mother Teresa caught malaria as well as chest infection and had heart surgery. On March 13th 1997, Sister Nirmala was selected as Mother Teresa’s successor. Finally on September 5th 1997, Mother Theresa had died at the age of 87. Mother Theresa’s funeral was held at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in India which holds 15,000 people. At the insistence of the Missionaries of Charity, half ofthe seats were reserved for the poor and sick that Mother Theresa took care of during her life. The State Funeral services usually reserved for Heads of State were led by Cardinal Sodano; the Vatican’s secretary of state and the Pope’s representative.Among the people attending Mother Theresa’s funeral were Hillary Clinton, representing the US, Bernadette Chirac for France, Italy’s Prime Minister Oscar Luigi, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Peter Jennings, Albania’s President Rexhep Mejdani, Ghana’s President Jerry Rawlings, the Duchess of Kent represented the British Monarchy, Queen Noor of Jordan, Queen Sofia of Spain, and Queen Fabiola of Belgium. Even with Mother Teresa gone, her sisters at the Missionaries ofCharities still strive to realize Mother Theresa’s dream of a world were everyone has a home were they can be loved and cared for. Bibliography -Mother Theresa Biography —- www.acsension-research.org- Mother Theresa of Calcutta — Microsoft Encarta- Insights from Mother Theresa — www.coastlink.com/lostheroins/webdoc1.htm