Mother Theresa
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BIOGRAPHY
She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 in Skopje, Yugoslavia.
Her family was of Albanian descent.
In 1928 she suddenly decided to become a nun and traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to join the Sisters of Loreto, a religious order founded in the seventeenth century.
On May 24, 1931, she took the name of “Teresa” in honor of St. Teresa of Lisieux (The Gale Group, 1998).
In 1950 she founded a religious order of nuns in Calcutta, India, called the Missionaries of Charity. Through this association, she dedicated her life to helping the poor, the sick, and the dying around the world, particularly those in India.
In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI.
When Mother Teresa was eighty years old, she started to suffer from heart problems. Even though Mother Teresa became weak, she still continued traveling and working.
Eight years later Mother Teresa died on September 5th, 1997, of a heart attack. She was eighty-seven years old.
IMPORTANT EVENTS
In 1952, she founded the first Home for the Dying in India. Later. People from all religions were accepted, they would receive medical attention and care.
She soon opened a home for lepers in Shanti Nagar. In 1955, Mother Teresa went ahead to open the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, a home for the orphan and homeless children.
The first house of the Missionaries of Charity that was established outside India was the one in Venezuela, which was opened in 1965.
Mother Teresa spoke at the fortieth anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly in October 1985. On Christmas Eve of that year, Mother Teresa opened “Gift of Love” in New York, her first house for AIDS patients.
From the late 1980s through the 1990s, despite increasing health problems, Mother Teresa travelled across the world for the profession of novices, opening of new houses, and service to the poor and disaster-stricken. New communities were founded in South Africa, Albania, Cuba, and war-torn Iraq.
By 2007, the Missionaries of Charity had established 600 missions, schools and homes in 120 nations and had thousands of nuns working for it.