Mother Teresa Biography

Mother Teresa was born in Skopje, Macedonia, on 26th August, 1910. She was the youngest children of Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu.

At the age of eighteen she left her home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months' training in Dublin she was sent to India. In 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. From 1948 she devoted herself for missionary work with the poor. Calcutta was the center of her humanitarian activities. On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from Vetican to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1955, she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, for orphans and homeless children.

The Society of Missionaries has provide effective help to the poorest of the poor in a number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and they undertake relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes such as floods, epidemics, and famine, and for refugees. At the time of her death, the Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries.

Mother Teresa received numerous awards in her life as recognition to her noble work towards humanity. These include the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971), the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding (1972), Nobel Peace Prize (1979) and Bharat Ratna (1980).

She died on 5 September 1997. On Oct. 19, 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa at St Peter’s Basilica, in Vatican City. Since then, she has been known as Blessed Mother Teresa.

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