St. Mother Teresa

Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje (in what is now North Macedonia), Mother Teresa grew up in a devoutly Catholic Albanian family. Her father died when she was young, and she was raised largely by her mother, whose habit of generous hospitality toward the poor left a deep impression on her. As a teenager she felt a call to religious life and, at eighteen, left home to join the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish-based congregation with missions in India.

She arrived in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1929 and began her novitiate. Two years later she made her first vows and was given the name Sister Mary Teresa, taken in honor of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron of missionaries. For nearly two decades she taught at St. Mary's High School in Kolkata, where she was known for her care for poor students and her discipline in the classroom. In 1944 she became the headmistress of the school, and in 1948 she received permission from the Vatican to leave the Sisters of Loreto and begin a new work among the city's poorest residents.

On the streets of Kolkata, she began her new apostolate wearing a simple white sari with a blue border that would become the recognizable habit of her future congregation. In 1950 she formally founded the Missionaries of Charity, a community dedicated to serving what she called 'the poorest of the poor.' The order grew rapidly, eventually opening houses for the dying, leper clinics, orphanages, and schools across India and around the world. Among her many honors was the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, awarded for her work in drawing attention to the suffering of the destitute.

Alongside her public mission, Mother Teresa experienced a prolonged interior darkness that lasted roughly the last fifty years of her life. In letters to her spiritual directors, made public after her death, she described feeling little or nothing of God's presence while continuing her work of service. She remained faithful to her vows and to the poor throughout this trial, offering what she called her 'darkness' alongside the suffering she witnessed. She died on September 5, 1997, in Kolkata, and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003 and canonized by Pope Francis in 2016. She is the patron of World Youth Day and of her own Missionaries of Charity, and her feast is celebrated on the anniversary of her death.