Mother Teresa was a Catholic nun who worked with orphans and the poor worldwide, winning a Nobel Peace Prize. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, caring for those in need, and was beatified in 2003.
Mother Teresa was a Roman Catholic nun who attracted international attention and won a Nobel Peace Prize for her work with orphans and the poor around the world. During her lifetime, she was responsible for touching the lives of thousands of underprivileged individuals, often working under harsh conditions in Third World countries, especially India. Immediately following her death on September 5, 1997, Pope John Paul II waived the five-year waiting period for her beatification process, allowing her to immediately begin the path to sainthood.
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on August 26, 1910. Of Albanian descent, Mother Teresa had her humble beginnings in Skopje, Macedonia. She seemed to get her call to ministry around the age of 12 and she wanted to work on a mission, spreading the love of Jesus Christ all over the world. She eventually left Macedonia and headed to India at the age of 18, after some training in Dublin, Ireland. She took her vows as a nun on May 24, 1931.
It was in India that Mother Teresa found her life’s work, spending most of her adult life in the city of Calcutta. Though Mother Teresa often traveled to other countries to draw attention to various issues, India was her home base. She began her career as a teacher at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta, but soon discovered that her mission was beyond the walls of the school building. With little money but a strong desire to help, she started an open school for India’s poorest children.
One of Mother Teresa’s most enduring effects is as a result of her decision to found her own order known as “The Missionaries of Charity.” This order has grown since the 1950s and has individuals scattered throughout the world with a mission to care for those that no one else can or will care for. That order has since spawned other movements, many of which work closely with Mother Teresa’s original organization to help reach even more individuals.
The awards conferred on Mother Teresa are numerous. In 1971 she was awarded the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. This was followed in 1979 by the Norwegian Committee which awarded her the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the most recognized prizes in the world. In awarding the award, the committee specifically mentioned her ability to work with others of various faiths.
In the last years of her life, she received an artificial pacemaker and suffered from pneumonia and malaria before her death. Mother Teresa was beatified on October 19, 2003, the first step towards becoming an officially recognized saint by the Roman Catholic Church. The church has not provided any timeline for completing the process.
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