Mother Teresa Essays (2660 words) - Superiors General, Humanitarians

Mother Teresa Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born August 26, 1910; baptized August 27 in Skopje, in Macedonia. When Agnes was 9, her father died. It was 1919 and Drana had to raise her three children, Aga (1904), Lazar (1907) and Gonxha (1910) alone. They prayed every evening, went to church every day, prayed the rosary every day in may and assisted the service for the Holy Virgin. A great and warm attention went also to the poor and needy who came to knock at the door. During the holidays a stay in the pilgrimage place of Letnice, where Our Lady was venerated, was a custom for the family. Agnes liked to be in church, she liked to read and to pray and to sing. Here mother also took care of an alcoholic women in the neighborhood. She went to wash and feed her twice a day and she also took care of a widow with 6 children. When Drana could not go, Agnes went to do this charitable work. And when the widow died, the children were raised in the house as if they were family. Lazar won a scholarship in Austria , Aga followed commercial school and Agnes went to the Lyceum. (Mother Teresa); A great part of their time also went to the Legion of Mary. She helped a father, who had difficulties with the language, to teach catechism and read a lot about Slovenian and Croatian missionaries in India. At twelve she felt for the first time the desire to spend her life for Gods' work, to give it to Him and to let Him decide. But how could she be sure? She prayed a lot over it and talked about it with her sister and her mother. And also the father to whom she confessed she asked: "How can I be sure?" He answered: "through your JOY. If you feel really happy by the idea that God might call you to serve Him, Him and your neighbor, then this is the evidence that you have a call." And he added: "the deep inner joy that you feel is the compass that indicates your direction in life". At 18 it is the day. The decision was made. The last two years she assisted several religious retreats in Letnice and it was clear to her that she would be a missionary for India. On Assumption day in 1928 she went to Letnice to pray for Our Lady's blessing before leaving. She was going to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto, who were very active in India. September 25 she leaves, accompanied to the station by the whole community: friends, schoolmates, neighbors, young and old and of course her mother and her sister Aga (who will be later a translator and a radio speaker). And everybody weeps. (Mainly from the book: "A life: Mother Teresa, Lush Gjergi, Albania). She travels over Zagreb, to Austria, Switzerland, France to London and then to the abbey close to Dublin where the mother house of the Loreto Sisters is. Gonxha learns to speak English and is trained in religious life. She receives the clothes of a sister and chooses the name of Sister Teresa, in memory of the Little Teresa of Lisieux, where they stopped on the way to London. In the mean time her papers get ready and 1928 on December the 1st the crossing to India starts: the country of her dreams. It is a long and tiring jo urney. Some more sisters are on board but the main group is anglican. For weeks they cannot attend mass or receive communion. Not on Christmas either. But they make a crib, pray the rosary and sing Christmas songs. In the beginning of 1929 they reach Colombo, then Madras and finally Calcutta. The journey continues to Darjeeling, at the feet of the Himalayas, where the young sister will accomplish her training. On may 23, 1929 she is accepted as a novice and two years later she makes her first vows. Immediately after that she is send to Bengali to help the sisters in the little hospital with the care for sick, starving and helpless mothers. She is touched by the endless misery which is there. (A