Danielle Hernandez

Ms. Miranda

Social Justice

February 14, 2010

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa is one of the most recognized and acclaimed individuals in the world

today. Her life devoted to doing God’s work has earned her many esteemed awards and honors

including a Nobel Prize for Peace.

She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 26, 1910.

Mother Teresa received her calling to a life of service to God at an early age. When she was only

18 years old, she left her family- never to see them again- to join the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland.

There she learned English and soon moved to one of the Sisters’ missions in India. There she

worked as a geography teacher at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta. This was Mother Teresa’s

practice of the principle of the call to family, community, and participation.

Then, in 1946, after looking out the window of her school to the slum streets below,

Mother Teresa experienced her “call within a call.” She decided to devote herself to caring for

the sick and poor and moved into the slums of Calcutta. She was given a pilgrim hostel and

moved in with simply a chair and a few crates. It was there that she founded her order in 1948.

She waited for and received other sisters and volunteers to come to her aid. She taught the

children of the slums and cared for the sick and near to death. She gave shelter to those whom

society had cast out. Here she honors the principles of solidarity, rights and responsibilities, and

dignity of the human person. Most importantly, though, she honors the principle of the

preferential option and love for the poor and vulnerable. She showed those who were
impoverished and hopeless unconditional love and care that anyone else would have seen

unnecessary.

She went on to receive honors from various popes including being given the ceremonial

limousine of Pope Paul VI (which she auctioned off to raise money for her leper colony). In her

later years Mother Teresa spoke out against divorce, contraception, and abortion. However, on

September 5, 1997, Mother Teresa passed away due to a heart-related illness. At the time of her

death, her order consisted of hundreds of centers in over 90 countries. It consisted of more than

4,000 nuns and hundreds of thousands of lay workers.

Two years later, the process to make Mother Teresa a saint was begun by Pope John Paul

II. She reached the rank of the blessed faster than anyone else in Church history.