Bharat Ratna Mother Teresa
A Brief Biography

Bharat Ratna Mother Teresa, was born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, to Nikolle and Drana Bojaxhiu at Shkoder, Albania, as the youngest of their children. Father of Mother Teresa died in 1919  when she was eight years old. After her father's death, her mother, raised her up. Mother Teresa left her home at the age of eighteen to join the Sisters of Loreto. Mother Teresa arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling near the Himalayan mountains, and took her first religious vows as a nun on May, 1931.

Although Mother Teresa enjoyed teaching children, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Kolkata in West Bengal. There was a famine in 1943 which brought misery and death to the eastern city of India. The Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror. On September 10, 1946, while making her famous train journey from Kolkata to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa experienced what she later described as "The Call Within The Call." Mother Teresa began her work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari decorated with a blue border. Mother Teresa adopted Indian citizenship and ventured out into the slums of Kolkata. Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving. She wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulties- she had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies.

She experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the convent life during the initial period.

Founding of Missionaries of Charity
Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See (Vatican) on October 7, 1950 to start the religious congregation that would be named as the 'Missionaries of Charity'. The Mission of the religious congregation was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for in society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone. "It began as a small Religious Order with 13 members in Kolkata. Today it has more than 5,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, charity centres worldwide and caring for refugees, blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, poor, homeless, victims of floods, epidemics, and famine. In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in Kolkata. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple at Kalighat into the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and an opportunity to die with dignity according to the rituals of their faith. The Holy Quran was read for Muslims, Hindus received water from holy river the Ganges and Christians received the Last Sacrament. "A beautiful death", she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels- loved and wanted." She soon opened a home for those suffering from leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (Town of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Kolkata, providing medication, bandages and food. As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing numbers of lost children, Mother felt the need to create a home for them. In 1995 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a heaven for orphans and homeless youth.

By the 1960s, Mother Teresa had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper houses allover India.
She then expanded her Religious Order throughout the globe. Mother Teresa opened her first house outside India in Venezuela in 1965 with five Religious Sisters, followed by Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968.

During the 1970s the Missionaries of Charity opened houses and foundations in dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States of America.

The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non Catholics were enrolled in as the Co-workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co- Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity.

Mother Teresa a Powerful Woman in Service
Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen by choice and she had the power to walk into any office and demand space for her children in any unused building and nobody could refuse her. She could conquer any barrier to serve. In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients. When Eastern Europe experienced more openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce, stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." Mother Teresa traveled to assist and help the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia.

In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more Ithan 100 countries. Over the years, Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" around the world.

On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 1. September 5, 1997. She was granted a State funeral by the Indian Government in gratitude for _';ii, her selfless services to the poor of all religions. Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world". During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person in the United States and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20ch century" by a poll in the U.S.

Following Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the third step towards possible canonization. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, follwing the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture.

Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the ancerous tumor.

At the time of her death, Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated ~ brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices; and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's' and family counseling-programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools. The Missionaries of Charity were also aided by Co- Workers, who numbered over 1 million by the 1990s.

Wards bestowed on Mother Teresa for her relentless service to the world other Teresa was awarded the Padmashri in 1962. She continued to receive major Indian iwards in successive decades including, in 1972, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for InternationalUnderstanding and in 1980, India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. President Ronal Reagan of United States of America presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony in 1985.

In 1962, she received the Philippines-based Ramon Magsaysay A ward for International Understanding, given for work in South or East Asia. By the early 1970s, she had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in a large part attributed to the 1960 documentary Something Beautiful For God, which was filmed by Malcom Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same tide. Muggeridge was undergoing a spiritual journey of his own at the time. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism. In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, commending her for her work with the poor, display of Christian charity and efforts for peace. She later received the Pacem in Terris Award (1976). Mother Teresa was honoured by both government and civilian organizations. She was appointed an honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1982, "for service to the community of Australia and humanity at large." The United Kingdom and the United States each repeatedly granted awards, culminating in the Order of Merit in 1983, and honorary citizenship of the United States received on November 16, 1996. Her Albanian homeland granted her the Golden Honour of the Nation in 1994. Universities in both the West and in India granted her honorary degrees. Other civilian awards include the Balzan Prize for promoting humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples (1978), and the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975). In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $ 192,000 funds be given to the poor in India, stating that earthly rewards were important only if they helped het help the world's needy.

When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered: "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme In her Nobel Lecture. she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much difficult to remove."

When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I am satisfied, I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society-that poverty is so 'hurtable' and so much, and I find that very difficult." She would tell the Sisters, "please remember we are not social workers. We are serving the Lord, because He is suffering." She and the Sisters lived like the poor, ate the same dal and chawal. with sabzi sometimes.