Mother Teresa was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary who for the poor, needy and for the people who were dying from AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis. Today is her 110th birth anniversary.
Mother Teresa was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary who won the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 1979 and donated prize money of $192,000 to the poor in India. Today is the 110th birth anniversary of Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa left her home at the age of 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto and wanted to learn the English language to become a missionary. Sisters of Loreto used English as a medium of instruction in India.
In the year 1929, Mother Teresa came to India and started teaching at St. Teresa’s School in Darjeeling. On May 24, 1931, she took her religious vows and taught St. Mary’s High School in Kolkata for almost two decades. In the year 1948, she began serving the poor and the needy. Two years later in 1950, she founded the Roman Catholic religious congregation which was later renamed as Missionaries of Charity.
In the year 1979, she won a Nobel Peace Prize for ‘work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace’. She refused to take the prize money and donated the entire amount to the poor in India. She set up many homes for the poor and needy and also for the people who were dying from AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis.
After several years of deteriorating health, including heart, lung and kidney problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. At the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters and an associated brotherhood of 300 members operating 610 missions in 123 countries. For a week before her funeral, Mother Teresa was laid in repose in an open casket in St. Thomas, Calcutta. Former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar attributed her as ‘She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world. ‘
On September 4, 2016, Vatican Pope canonized her posthumously as a Patron Saint for her service to the needy and poor. On the occasion of her 1st anniversary of canonization, Mother Teresa was made the co-patron of the Calcutta Archdiocese in the Cathedral of the Most Holy Rosary at 5.30 pm on 6 September 2017.
