Quick Facts
- NAME: Mother Teresa
- OCCUPATION: Nun, Saint
- BIRTH DATE: 1910
- DEATH DATE: September 05, 1997
- EDUCATION: Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Skopje, Macedonia
- PLACE OF DEATH: Calcutta, India
Best Known For
Mother Teresa was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to helping the poor.
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Mother Theresa - BIO Radio (1:13)
Mother Theresa - BIO Radio
After receiving a message from God, Mother Theresa gave her life to the poor.
Mother Teresa. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 05:19, May 23, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160
Mother Teresa [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160, May 23
"Mother Teresa." 2012. Biography.com 23 May 2012, 05:19 http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160
'Mother Teresa', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160 [accessed May 23, 2012]
"Mother Teresa," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160 (accessed May 23, 2012).
Mother Teresa [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 May 23]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160.
Mother Teresa, http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160 (last visited May 23, 2012).
Mother Teresa, http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160 (last visited May 23, 2012).
Synopsis
Mother Teresa (baptized August 27, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia) taught in India for 17 years before she experienced her 1946 "call within a call" to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. Her order established a hospice; centers for the blind, aged, and disabled; and a leper colony. She was summoned to Rome in 1968, and in 1979 received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work
Quotes
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.
Profile
Catholic nun, missionary. Mother Teresa was born August 26, 1910 in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time of her birth and was conquered by the Kingdom of Serbia in 1912, when she was two years old. On August 27, 1910, a date frequently mistaken for her birthday, she was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Mother Teresa's parents, Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu, were of Albanian descent; her father was an entrepreneur who worked as a construction contractor and a trader of medicines and other goods. The Bojaxhius were a devoutly Catholic family, and Nikola Bojaxhiu was deeply involved in the local church as well as in city politics as a vocal proponent of Albanian independence.
In 1919, when Mother Teresa was only eight years old, her father suddenly fell ill and died. While the cause of his death remains unknown, many have speculated that political enemies poisoned him. In the aftermath of her father's death, Mother Teresa became extraordinarily close to her mother, a pious and compassionate woman who instilled in her daughter a deep commitment to charity. Although by no means wealthy, Drana Bojaxhiu extended an open invitation to the city's destitute to dine with her family. "My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she counseled her daughter. When Mother Teresa asked who the people eating with them were, her mother uniformly responded, "Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people."
Mother Teresa attended a convent-run primary school and then a state-run secondary school. As a girl Mother Teresa sang in the local Sacred Heart choir and was often asked to sing solos. The congregation made an annual pilgrimage to the chapel of the Madonna of Letnice atop Black Mountain in Skopje, and it was on one such trip at the age of twelve that Mother Teresa first felt a calling to a religious life. Six years later, in 1928, an 18-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu decided to become a nun and set off for Ireland to join the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was there that she took the name Sister Mary Teresa after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. A year later, she traveled on to Darjeeling, India for the novitiate period; in May 1931, Mother Teresa made her First Profession of Vows. Afterward she was sent to Calcutta, where she was assigned to teach at Saint Mary's High School for Girls, a school run by the Loreto Sisters and dedicated to teaching girls from the city's poorest Bengali families. Mother Teresa learned to speak both Bengali and Hindi fluently as she taught geography
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Nobel Peace Prize Winners
View groupWhen Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel died in 1896, he left his fortune to create an annual series of prizes for the individuals who confer "the greatest benefit on mankind." The most prestigious of the awards is the Nobel Peace Prize. Historians believe Alfred Nobel wanted to award people who work for peace to compensate for his own role in inventing dynamite. Since its establishment, the prize has gone to many courageous individuals who have fought for peace and human rights around the world.
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Famous Nuns
View groupBrowse notable nuns such as Mother Teresa, St Clare of Assisi, and Saint Hildegard.
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