Mother Teresa de Calcutta: 10 data about her life

Every September 5, the feast of the Holy Mother Teresa of Calcuta is celebrated, canonized in 2016 by Pope Francis.

Below we present some significant data around the life of the saint, who dedicated himself entirely to the service of “the poor among the poor”, becoming testimony of divine mercy in the twentieth century.

1. Baptized with beautiful names

Teresa de Calcutta was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, current Macedonia (at that time, part of Albania). He was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. ‘Agnes’, which in Spanish is ‘Inés’, means ‘pure’ or ‘Santa’; while ‘Gonxha’ means ‘Capullo de Rosa’ or ‘small flower’.

2. He lost his father soon, but God was always close

He made his first communion at the age of five and was confirmed at six. At eight o’clock his father and his family died through a period of economic difficulties. He received a solid Christian formation at home and in the Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

3. He chose the name of ‘Teresa’ in honor of a great holy

At 18 he left his home and entered the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ireland (Loreto sisters). He took the name of ‘Teresa’ by Santa Teresa de Lisieux, patron of the missions and doctor of the Church.

4. She was a teacher at a Calcutta school

Teresa arrived in Calcutta on January 6, 1929, solemnity of the epiphany, to work as a teacher. On May 24, 1937, Mary Help of Mary Help, she conducted her perpetual profession thus becoming, as she said, “wife of Jesus” for “all eternity.”

5. He left the order to which he belonged

During the years in the Congregation of Loreto’s sisters he dedicated himself to teaching. On September 10, 1946, during the trip on his annual retirement, he received what he called the “call within the call”, in which a thirst for love and souls seized his heart. There I glimpse what a new order would be: the missioners of charity. The Holy would leave Loreto’s sisters and focus on the new order.

6. VISIONS OF JESUS ​​AND THE CALL TO THE SERVICE TO THE POOR BROTHER

Through locutions and visions, Jesus showed him the new mission he called her. “Come and be my light,” the Lord begged. Christ revealed his pain for the forgetfulness of the poor, his sorrow for how little they knew him and the desire to be loved by them.

Mother Teresa already dressed with the white sari of blue, was introduced into the world of the needy Calcutta, India, a city inhabited by many people in extreme poverty. He received a medicine course with the missionary medical sisters and found temporary accommodation with the little sisters of the poor.

7. Spiritual formula: daily mass, frequent confession and the ’emergency novena’

His day began with the Eucharist and left the house with the rosary in his hand and prayed almost all the time. That was the source of where he nurtured his love to the Lord in the poorest. He went to confession once a week.

Given the large number of problems that he faced frequently and the hardness of her missionary work, Mother Teresa de Calcuta was given a way to ask for the intercession of the Virgin Mary: the “emergency novena”, which you can know here.

8. First foundation outside India: Venezuela

In the 1960s, Mother Teresa began sending her sisters to various parts of India. The first house of the missioners who founded outside the country was in Venezuela. Then the order expanded to the rest of the continents, having a presence even in communist countries such as the former Soviet Union and Cuba.

9. The missioners of charity were only the beginning

On October 7, 1950, Fiesta de Nuestra Señora del Rosario, the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established. But there would not be everything. The mother also founded the contemplative branch of the sisters, as well as the missionary brothers of charity, the contemplative brothers, the missionary parents of charity, the collaborators of Mother Teresa, and the sick and suffering collaborators. The Corpus Christi priestly movement began.

10. “Darkness” and “Light”

Santa Teresa de Calcutta experienced a deep, painful and constant feeling of remoteness of God, even feeling rejected by him, while experiencing a growing desire for his love. She called this complex and long interior experience “dark. The experience of “darkness” began more or less at the beginning of their service to the poor and continued until the end of their lives.

As is well known, Mother Teresa and San Juan Pablo II were great friends. It was this who approved the opening of the mother’s beatification before the five years of rigor after the death of the candidate, as established by the Church. San Juan Pablo II beatified her on October 19, 2003, on the day of World Missions Day.