Mother Teresa: Missionary of Charity

ALBANIAN SCHOOLGIRL to BLESSED TERESA OF CALCUTTAIn 1946 Sister Teresa at 36 left Loreto convent in Calcutta without a penny to minister to the ‘poorest of the poor’. This was the bloodiest time in the history of India: Hindus and Muslims killing each other. The tiny nun survived to found the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. For months ‘Mother’ Teresa waited in torment for her first novitiate. At her death 49 years later her sisters numbered 4000. They tended the neglected in over 120 countries. She also founded orders for brothers and lay people. Her army of many thousands never tried to convert the needy to her religion. Instead they were to ‘do something beautiful for God’. They helped the poor get good water, schooling, clothing, food and medical care. They were the only hope for abandoned babies, orphans, prostitutes, lepers, HIV victims, the battered, the hungry, the sick, the dying...Mother Teresa’s impact is incalculable. Honors mortified her but if one brought with it one penny for the poor how could she refuse? She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She won the American Presidential Freedom Medal in 1985. By a wide margin Americans voted her the most admired person of the 20th Century. She was beatified in 2003. Few doubt one more miracle will occur in her name, and she will become Saint Teresa of Calcutta.