Agnes Bojaxhiu, as Mother Teresa was christened, was born on August 26, 1910. She was the youngest of Nikola and Drana’s three children.
Lazar her elder brother was born in 1907 and her sister, Aga, in 1904 and they all grew up together in Skopje, a small Serbian town.
Agnes was born into unstable times, with 1910 seeing the first Albanian uprising. Within two years the Balkan States would be at war, and this unrest would culminate in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War.
Luckily, Agnes’s father was a successful merchant and the family remained financially secure through these unsettling times.
Religion played a role in almost every aspect of Agnes’s life, from her birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood to old age, religion played a lot of role in her life.
As a member of the predominantly Albanian parish of the Sacred Heart, her family’s social life, as well as religious life revolved around the church which was itself a focus for the Albanian community’s customs and traditions.
Later, Agnes applied to the order of Loreto Nuns, whose work as missionaries in Bengal she had heard so much about. She was accepted and left Skopje on 25 September 1928.
She had to go to Zagreb to meet up with another noviciate, Betike Kanjc, so that they could make the first step of their journey together.
It was in Zagreb that Agnes said her final goodbye to the friends who had come to wish her well, and to her mother, sister, brother, and all her loved ones who had accompanied her, whose loves are crested deep in her heart
Agnes was only eighteen and sad, as she must have felt that day. Little did she know that she would never see her mother again.
Agnes and their friend had to undertake the difficult journey to Ireland and the Loreto Nuns’ Mother House in Rathfarman.
Nearly two years and a half years after she arrived in India, Agnes took her first vow as a Sister of Loreto on 24 May 1931. She chose to be named after her patron saint, St. Theresa of Lisieux, or St. Theresa of the Child Jesus. that was how the most famous name Mother Theresa was birthed
Sadly, Saint Theresa died young of tuberculosis. But it was her love of missions and prayers for priests, especially missionaries, which had inspired the Pope to name her.
There was a complication, however, as a novice called Theresa was already at the convent Agnes adopted the Spanish spelling. She was now Sister Teresa.
Having served another six years as a noviciate, Sister Teresa took her lifelong vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on 14 May 1937.
She was now ready to move on from Darjeeling. She was sent to the Loreto Convent in Entally and eastern district of Calcutta.
Here, the Loreto Nuns had a large property called St. Mary’s where they ran a girls’ school for some 500 pupils, mostly borders who had been orphaned.
The convent had originally been established as an orphanage for children of all denominations.
Far from home Sister Teresa discovered an unexpected link to Skopje in Mary’s School. Here there was an active branch of the same organization that had so influenced her schoolgirl years, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin.
The members of this branch worked to relieve the terrible poverty of families living in the slum so near to the convent. Here, the girls noticed the potential that Sister Teresa had as a leader who was setting an active example to the girls.
To teach at the school, Sister Teresa had to learn Bengali, to which she would add Hindu, whilst she also became fluent in English. She taught geography and then history in both schools, and gave her full commitment to her religious life as part of the community she had joined.
No one could have guessed at the time that the young Sister would one day give up this life and leave the convent. The very poor were never far from her thoughts, however, and the life of the convent was not so secluded that the Sisters never left its walls.
Sister Teresa’s teaching also took her to the local church’s primary school, St. Teresa’s. This meant leaving the clean and ordered life of the convent walking through the poverty-stricken streets of the nearby slums. Before coming to Italy, the young Sister had never seen poverty like this.
While she taught in India for 17 years, Sister Teresa experienced her “call within a call” in 1946. Her order established centers for the blind, aged, and disabled and a leper colony.
Her humanitarian works later earned her the Noble Peace Prize in the year 1979. as she was later addressed as a mother, no longer sister Teresa and her name officially became Mother Teresa
She died in September 1997 and was beatified in October 2003. as Mother Teresa was later canonized (declared Saint) on September 4, 2016. that even open her death and years after, Mother Teresa's name remains a household name. a name with big honor and respect. From Bassey, reporting for World Forum. this is just a brief about the life of Mother Teresa
Lazar her elder brother was born in 1907 and her sister, Aga, in 1904 and they all grew up together in Skopje, a small Serbian town.
Agnes was born into unstable times, with 1910 seeing the first Albanian uprising. Within two years the Balkan States would be at war, and this unrest would culminate in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War.
Luckily, Agnes’s father was a successful merchant and the family remained financially secure through these unsettling times.
Religion played a role in almost every aspect of Agnes’s life, from her birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood to old age, religion played a lot of role in her life.
As a member of the predominantly Albanian parish of the Sacred Heart, her family’s social life, as well as religious life revolved around the church which was itself a focus for the Albanian community’s customs and traditions.
Later, Agnes applied to the order of Loreto Nuns, whose work as missionaries in Bengal she had heard so much about. She was accepted and left Skopje on 25 September 1928.
She had to go to Zagreb to meet up with another noviciate, Betike Kanjc, so that they could make the first step of their journey together.
It was in Zagreb that Agnes said her final goodbye to the friends who had come to wish her well, and to her mother, sister, brother, and all her loved ones who had accompanied her, whose loves are crested deep in her heart
Agnes was only eighteen and sad, as she must have felt that day. Little did she know that she would never see her mother again.
Agnes and their friend had to undertake the difficult journey to Ireland and the Loreto Nuns’ Mother House in Rathfarman.
Nearly two years and a half years after she arrived in India, Agnes took her first vow as a Sister of Loreto on 24 May 1931. She chose to be named after her patron saint, St. Theresa of Lisieux, or St. Theresa of the Child Jesus. that was how the most famous name Mother Theresa was birthed
Sadly, Saint Theresa died young of tuberculosis. But it was her love of missions and prayers for priests, especially missionaries, which had inspired the Pope to name her.
There was a complication, however, as a novice called Theresa was already at the convent Agnes adopted the Spanish spelling. She was now Sister Teresa.
Having served another six years as a noviciate, Sister Teresa took her lifelong vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on 14 May 1937.
She was now ready to move on from Darjeeling. She was sent to the Loreto Convent in Entally and eastern district of Calcutta.
Here, the Loreto Nuns had a large property called St. Mary’s where they ran a girls’ school for some 500 pupils, mostly borders who had been orphaned.
The convent had originally been established as an orphanage for children of all denominations.
Far from home Sister Teresa discovered an unexpected link to Skopje in Mary’s School. Here there was an active branch of the same organization that had so influenced her schoolgirl years, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin.
The members of this branch worked to relieve the terrible poverty of families living in the slum so near to the convent. Here, the girls noticed the potential that Sister Teresa had as a leader who was setting an active example to the girls.
To teach at the school, Sister Teresa had to learn Bengali, to which she would add Hindu, whilst she also became fluent in English. She taught geography and then history in both schools, and gave her full commitment to her religious life as part of the community she had joined.
No one could have guessed at the time that the young Sister would one day give up this life and leave the convent. The very poor were never far from her thoughts, however, and the life of the convent was not so secluded that the Sisters never left its walls.
Sister Teresa’s teaching also took her to the local church’s primary school, St. Teresa’s. This meant leaving the clean and ordered life of the convent walking through the poverty-stricken streets of the nearby slums. Before coming to Italy, the young Sister had never seen poverty like this.
While she taught in India for 17 years, Sister Teresa experienced her “call within a call” in 1946. Her order established centers for the blind, aged, and disabled and a leper colony.
Her humanitarian works later earned her the Noble Peace Prize in the year 1979. as she was later addressed as a mother, no longer sister Teresa and her name officially became Mother Teresa
She died in September 1997 and was beatified in October 2003. as Mother Teresa was later canonized (declared Saint) on September 4, 2016. that even open her death and years after, Mother Teresa's name remains a household name. a name with big honor and respect. From Bassey, reporting for World Forum. this is just a brief about the life of Mother Teresa