Mother Teresa - The Saint of the Miserable
During her lifetime, Mother Teresa was always concerned with helping the poor and vulnerable, and she dedicated her life to serving this goal.
Mother Teresa, whose real name is Agnes, was born in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910. Her father is a successful businessman and her mother is a housewife. From an early age, Agnes was a caring little girl and loved to help others. Her mother was also a compassionate and religious woman.
When Agnes was 9 years old, her father died, so her mother had to single-handedly take care of the children. At the age of 12, Agnes decided to become a missionary. At the age of 18, Agnes left her hometown to join the Daughters of Loreto, a community of Irish nuns on mission in India.
Mother Teresa blesses a child in Singapore on October 20, 1993. Photo: AFP.
Agnes trained for a few months in Dublin then sent to India. When she became a missionary, she adopted the name Mary Teresa. In Kolkata, India, she first worked at a hospital, then taught at St. Mary.
She loved teaching and quickly became the favorite teacher of all the students. But the poverty and misery of the people of India at that time made Agnes very sad, so she asked permission to leave the convent school and spend the rest of her life helping the poor in Kolkata. She was trained in health care and began to help the poor and sick in the city.
She spends every penny she earns to buy medicine for the poor. But as people learned more about Mother Teresa's heart, they supported her with donations for a good cause. Many people volunteered to be part of her support group.
On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity to take care of the poor and needy, attracting many other nuns to join. Her "Missionaries of Charity" lineage has expanded to 20 cities in India.
By the 1960s, the world had opened its doors to Mother Teresa. She is respected for her kind heart and passion for helping the poor and helpless. Mother Teresa was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize in 1962. In 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize. By that time, the "Missors of Charity" had opened 61 new establishments in 28 countries outside of India.
In 1982, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in Beirut during the Lebanese war. She traveled to Armenia after the 1988 earthquake that killed about 60,000 people. Mother Teresa also went to Ethiopia to support the poor, to Chernobyl to help victims of radiation poisoning. In 1996, Mother Teresa ran 517 missions in over 100 countries.
Her health began to decline in 1983 when she had her first heart attack. She died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. The Indian government at that time held a funeral for Mother Teresa to pay homage to her selfless life of dedication. Mother Teresa was canonized as a Kolkata Saint on September 4, 2016.
"If I become a saint, I will definitely be a 'dark' saint, constantly absent from Heaven to shine a light on those who are engulfed in darkness on Earth," Mother Teresa once said. . This can be considered as her life philosophy: Serving the weak.