MOTHER TERESA: SAINT OF THE SLUMS

● August 26, 1910 (Skopje/skawp.yuh/, which is now the capital of the Republic of
Macedonia) – Mother Teresa was born in Albania
● Nikola was the father of Mother Teresa and Dranafile was the name of Teresa's
mother. Her father was a businessman. He worked as a Construction Contractor and
was also a supplier of medical drugs.
● Caholics were a minority in Skopje- family was religious.
● When Agnes was 9- father died. After Nicola's death, his business partners ran away
with all the money. At that time the world war was also going on, due to all these
reasons his family was also going through financial problems. That was the most
tragic period for her and her family.
● Mother still helped people.
● In 1921 – Jesuit missionaries arrive in Skopje- stories about missions in India –
especially Calcutta- Agnes influenced by these stories “I would love to go to
India”
● In 1922 -1st vision from God – devotee her life to God – Mother not very happy with
her decision to become a nun.
● Letter to Lazar “ My dear Lazar, Working for the King of Albania, you shall serve
two million people, but I shall serve the King of the whole world”
● One of the local Jesuit priests, Father Franjo Jambrekovic informed her about
sisters of Loreto- based in Ireland- do a lot of missionary work in India- will have to
go to Paris- Mother McAvin
● Accompanied by mother and sister, Agnes goes to Paris- reached Croatia – another
women who was also travelling to Paris
● Sent to Loreto Abbey in Ireland – started learning English
● Dec 1928- sailed to Calcutta
● Slums of Calcutta- People were living with no roofs over their heads, no beds to sleep
in, and without even the smallest scrap of food to eat.
● When Agnes reached India, then her training to be a Nun had started. The training to
be a Nun has three stages:
1. The first stage is Novices. On May 23, 1929, Agnes became an official
novice, which is the beginner phase. Where she trained to help others. She
taught in a small school in Darjeeling, St. Teresa’s school.
2. The second stage is Postulant. This is the religious phase of the training
period.
3. The third and final stage is Nun. In the process of becoming a Nun, they all
had the choice to take a new name. So Agnes took the name of 'Teresa'. So
this is how Agnes of Skopje became Sister Teresa of India, in May 24, 1931
● The first time Sister Teresa was directly exposed to poverty and illness – a man
carrying a blind boy comes to the Convent. The man found boy all alone on the
streets. Sister Teresa took the boy in.
● But the main focus of the Loreto Sisters was not on tending to the sick, but on
reducing poverty through education.
● May 24, 1937 – Sister Teresa became Mother Teresa
● Teresa as a Teacher
 ▪ In 1931, Teresa took her first vow of Celibacy. Teresa's institution sent her to
Darjeeling where she taught in a convent school. She taught Arithmetic,
Geography, and Religion.
▪ Mother Teresa had faced many challenges after coming to India. She didn't
know English. So firstly, she learned English and Hindi both languages. Along
with all this, she continued to help needy people.
▪ After a month, Teresa transferred to Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) from
Darjeeling. And now she started to teach in St. Mary High School.
▪ From 1931 to 1948, Teresa taught geography, arithmetic, and religion at St.
Mary's High School in Calcutta. Later, she took over as the headmistress there
● Beyond the towering walls and peaceful gardens of Loreto compound, an entire city
was crying out for help, and she was beginning to take notice. Throughout Calcutta,
most people lacked the basic necessities such as food and shelter.
● For the World War, the British needed space for military hospital, so Loreto Entally
became one such place. The Sisters were moved to other convents in the country.
● Second World War
▪ When the Second World War happened, Teresa was crushed. She was stunned
by this decay of humanity. At that time, she was handling all the work of
institutions and she faced many challenges.
▪ Some so many people needed food, medical help, shelter, cloth, and other
essential things. Then Teresa and her institution had started to collect the
funds. And so the British government has helped them, also so many
organizations came to support raising funds.
● Other Challenges
▪ The partition of India, was also a very crucial period. Then Teresa and other
Missionaries helped each and every one.
▪ Teresa had a special place for poor children in her heart. Just after the
independence of India, every citizen was facing economic crises. After
partition, Teresa opened several Refugees Camps for helping the refugee
children.
● After the World War, Mother Teresa returned to the convent in 1946. The situation
outside Loreto had grown even worse, with almost two million dead from famine and
food shortage. The riots between the Hindu and the Muslim communities also
happened on a regular basis. The convent had run out of food and Mother Teresa
decided to go out in search for food for her children. A soldier on the street warns her
of the danger. She shared her concern with the officer. He decides to help them by
proving the supply from their military unit. The soldier drove Mother Teresa back to
Loreto and with enough rice to feed everyone at the convent.
● September 1946 – Second Vision- Telling her to leave Loreto, give up everything
and help the poor while living among them.
● October 1946 – talks to Father Celeste Van Exem, her spiritual advisor. Advised to
write a letter to the Archbishop Perier of Calcutta.
● After a year of introspection, Archbishop Perier gave his approval on January 6,
1948. But final decision can only be made by the Pope. For eight long months,
Mother Teresa continued her work at Loreto, waiting for a response from the Pope.
● August 8, 1948- Father Celeste Van Exem informs her that her request for helping the
poor has been approved for one year and after a year she has to directly report to
Archbishop Perier. If her mission is not successful, she has to return back to Loreto
and resume her suties.
● 1 week preparation to go to the slums - Replaced her black habit with Indian Sari-
chose the cheapest white cotton fabric with blue border.
● August 16, 1948- she left for Patna – to study medical work with the nuns of Patna.
The medical training was intensive. Mother Teresa soon learned basic medical
procedures. She even sat in on complicated medical surgical procedures and
childbirths. She wanted to be prepared for any type of medical emergency in Calcutta.
● December 8, 1948 – returned to Calcutta - After settling back in Calcutta, Mother
Teresa took to the slums -Moti Jheel lay just outside the Entally compound. It was the
very slum Mother Teresa saw from her dassroom window during her years at Loreto.
Those brief glimpses had convinced her that this was where she was needed, so she
made it her very first stop. Scenes of poverty and distress were so common that
people thought nothing of stepping over the starving or dying as they hurried about
their daily business. Moti Jheal was one of the poorest areas in the entire city. Its
residents survived with little food and no medical care or schooling. For the poorest of
the poor there was no relief from suffering.
● The slums of Moti Jheel were not a place for visitors; they were a place where people
ended up when they had nowhere else to go. In such a place, a European nun dressed
in a sari truly stood out. Everyone was curious, especially the children. Mother Teresa
noticed that these children looked sick, hungry and neglected. The next day, she
decided to look for them to help them. She wouldn't have to find them. The young
children were actually waiting for her at the edge of Moti Jheel, still overcome with
curiosity, they wanted to see if she would come back again. She had no books or any
kind of teaching material. So, with just a wooden stick Mother Teresa began teaching
basic arithmetic and writing in her little impromptu open-air school.
● By the end of that first week, the lifeless silence of Moti Jheel had been replaced by
the lyrical chanting of young voices saying the Bengali alphabet over and over again.
The young children were desperate to learn.
● The Little Sisters of the Poor had donated some money to help Mother Teresa with
her work. She could now buy milk for the children and also rent two empty huts in the
slums. One for a school room, and one for a shelter for the sick and dying. But no
matter how caring and devoted she was, there was only so much a single person could
do. There were still tens of thousands in the streets and Mother Teresa could not be
everywhere at once.
● In February 1949, Subhasini Das, one of her former students from Loreto, took the
name of Sister Agnes, and joined her. Magdalena Gomes, another of Mother Teresa's
former students, joined them a few weeks later. She took the name of Sister Gertrude.
Then they were joined by yet another former student, and then another, and another.
● In the summer months, Mother Teresa braved the brutal heat, walking the streets
endlessly every day. Her one luxury was to carry a small bottle of water. Even amidst
the monsoons, Mother Teresa's work never stopped. The people outside of the slurs
began to take notice of her when she would pass. Not everyone in Calcutta knew her
name. They knew of the nun in the white and blue sari that spent her days in the
 slums. They started calling her the 'Saint of the Slums and Gutters'. And as word of
her mission began to spread, so too did the realization that perhaps the poor and
helpless did not deserve to be forgotten and left to their fate. Small financial donations
began coming in from the more well-off citizens of Calcutta. Doctors began
volunteering their time and medical services.
● In one year Mother Teresa had achieved far more than expected. Ten girls, all former
students from Loreto, were now working with her. With the trial year running out, she
approached the Archbishop of Calcutta to find out her fate. A few days later, the
approval had come from Vatican.
● On October 7, 1950, her small group of nuns became a formal order, just like the
Sisters of Loreto. It was named the Missionaries of Charity.
● In June of 1952, city officials offered Mother Teresa two empty rooms next to a The
Kali Temple. They were much larger than the shacks in Moti Jheel. This room used to
be a rest house for pilgrims to spend the night, but it's been vacant for a while. By
now, thirty prospective nuns had joined Mother Teresa and many were preparing to
take their first vows. They scrubbed the rooms from top to bottom. They named it
“Nirmal Hriday", Bengali for 'pure heart'.
● Not everyone was happy with Nirmal Hriday. A group of Hindu men feared their own
beliefs were being disrespected by the Christian nuns. The Hindus and critics believed
that Teresa was spreading Christianity and raising the number of Christians in her
Mission in India and other Asian countries like Nepal, Pakistan, Srilanka, Bhutan, etc.
She was extremely criticized by the journalist, Hindus, and another nationalist.
● Government officials had started taking notice of the work that Mother Teresa was
doing. Word had already spread that the Missionaries of Charity were out of food. So
the city of Calcutta shut down their schools for two days. And they sent all their food
to Mother Teresa, so that she could take care of her people.
● On September 23, 1955, they opned Shishu Bhavan, a home dicated to abandoned
children. “It's not enough to get these children off the streets. We must find them good
homes and prepare them for a life beyond the slums.” Mother Teresa and her nuns
even taught the older children skills like typing, embroidery, and carpentry to give
them the chance of a better life.
● There were about thirty thousand people suffering from leprosy in Calcutta alone.
And due to the malnutrition and lack of medical care in the slums, the disease was
spreading like an epidemic. The lepers didn't know then that if detected early, leprosy
could be cured. They believed they had no future. No future...until Mother Teresa
took up their cause.
● Before the year 1957 was over, Mother Teresa's mission was operating mobile leprosy
clinics and treating hundreds of lepers all over Calcutta. They even received
ambulances to help transport medicine and care to the lepers They started distributing
food, clothing and medicines that could help combat me symptoms and even eradicate
the disease.
● By the early part of 1960, she set up houses and treatment centers devoted to children,
the dying, and lepers in Ranchi and Jhansi, and one in Delhi, where Indian Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru paid Mother Teresa a visit for the grand opening of her
new facility.
● On October 25, 1960, she left India for the first time. She traveled all over the world,
from the United States and England to Germany and Switzerland. The place she
longed to visit most was Albania, where her family now lived. Unfortunately she
wasn't allowed. Albania was then ruled by a totalitarian communist government that
would not allow its citizens to leave or any visitor to enter.
● She also met Pope John XXIII. She was awed to be in the presence of the head of the
Catholic Church and could request nothing more than a blessing. She also met other
Vatican leaders and spoke about her goals for expansion. “Poverty is everywhere.
Even in countries that are far wealthier than India, there is a poverty of the
spirit. They are poor and alone. I believe no one should be alone in this world.”
● Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta on December 1, 1960. For the next few years, she
continued her work in India, expanding to Agra and Bombay and Darjeeling. And she
anxiously waited while Vatican officials reviewed every aspect of her order, from the
type of medical care they provided to the way the nuns were trained and to the love
and care they offered to those who had lost all hope.
● 1965 – Worldwide expansion began with South America in Cocorote, Venezuela.
And from Venezuela expansion continued rapidly as they spread from continent to
continent, from Colombo in Asia to Tanzania in Africa and Rome in Europe to
Melbourne in Austr and then to New York City in the US, with more than a dozen
other cities across the globe in the first decade of expansion.
● The one place Mother Teresa was unable to visit was Albania. Unfortunately
Dranafile passed away in 1972 and Aga died in 1974. Thus, Mother Teresa never got
her chance of a family reunion.
● To combat the 'poverty of spirit', the Missionaries of Charity opened houses dedicated
to caring for the homeless or alcoholics or shut-ins. Over time, they also focused on
helping battered women. They provided medical care to refugees displaced by wars
and famine. They started doing relief work to help regions ravaged by natural
disasters, constructing shelters and rebuilding shattered communities. And still, they
never forgot where their work began. Sensing that the lepers she was treating in India
needed more care than a mobile clinic could provide. She made leprosy centers. The
first of these centers was built on thirty-five acres of land donated by the Government
of India and was named Shanti Nagar, meaning town of peace And from this first
leprosy center three hundred kilometers outside of Calcutta, Mother Teresa's order
went on to build eighty more.
● By 1973, Mother Teresa's order had nineteen homes in thirteen different countries
outside of India; she continued her travels around the world, building more and more
such houses.
● In recognition of Mother Teresa's hard work to improve the world, India's national
airlines wanted her to have easy access to the entire world and granted her free air
travel for life and the Indian government even gave her the same privileges on all
Indian Railways.
● December 11, 1979, The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize to Mother Teresa for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and
distress. She is one of those liberated souls who have transcended all barriers
presented by race, religion, and nationality.
● January 25, 1980, Mother Teresa became the first foreign-born recipient of one of
India's highest honors, the Bharatratna.
● August 14, 1982, Demonstrating her compassion again, Mother Teresa visited the
city of Beirut in Lebanon to try and aid those affected by a war in the area.
● Salvator Mundi Hospital in Rome, Italy. June 1983. After a minor fall, doctors
discovered Mother Teresa was suffering from a serious heart condition. Mother
Teresa reluctantly agreed to remain in the hospital, her first time off since she began
her mission nearly forty years earlier. But not even a heart condition could keep her
from her work. And within a few weeks she was Me' to the unwanted children and the
sick all over the world and she could not abandon them.
● By 1986 she had treated more than four million patients for leprosy alone. Just a
couple of years later the Missionaries of Charity started operating mobile health
clinics, six hundreds of them. They had by then opened more than 350 houses in
seventy-seven different countries. And they continued to take on new causes... even
opening a shelter for AIDS patients. She traveled wherever she was needed. Whether
that was tending to earthquake victims in Armenia, or feeding starving children in
Ethiopia, or comforting radiation victims after an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant. Even old age and her declining health couldn't slow her down. She got a
pacemaker in 1989 Despite that Mother Teresa remained the head of her order.
● Finally in 1991 Mother Teresa succeeded in opening a Mission house in her homeland
of Albania, while the world focused on awarding her dedication.

Awards and Recognitions:

● In 1985, she was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom
● In 1993, she was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice by the Roman Catholic
Church, the most distinguished award offered by the Papacy.
● Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice – 1993
● Honorary Order Of Merit - 1983
● Her prestigious honors often came with not just pins and medals but substantial
monetary awards as well, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars And she donated
every cent to the poor.
● 1996 –US citizenship
● 1962 –Padma Sri Award

Death and Legacy

● In her old age, she had faced many health issues. She was also taking treatment from
the doctors of Eastern Country. Still, after some years, her organs had stopped
working, including lungsand kidneys. And on 5 September 1997, at the age of 87,
Mother Teresa had died in Kolkata,West Bengal (India).
● In 2015, Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church declared Mother Teresa a Saint.
This is known as canonization, and it means Mother Teresa is now known as St.
Teresa of Calcutta in the Catholic Church.
● Why did Agnes choose the name "Teresa'?
The inspiration came from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, France. She is known as the saint
of missionaries, AIDS sufferers, and orphans. She is also the patron saint of Russia
and France. Thérèse is famous for her compassion and devotion to God, and her
emphasis on small daily sacrifices rather than heroic deeds, made her popular among
those hoping to lead a spiritual life.