Essay Mother Teresa: The Saint of Calcutta

was proud of. She also spent much of her time praying to and serving God. She

At age 12, she felt a strong calling to lead a religious life. She decided that she would become a nun and a missionary(Mother Teresa Biography). At age 18, she joined the Sisters of Loretto in Ireland, where she picked the name Teresa after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Mother Teresa of Calcutta). She sailed to India just six weeks later to become a teacher(Blessed Mother Teresa). For 17 years she taught at the school before she experienced her “call within a call”. While riding a train to a retreat, Christ spoke to her. According to Mother Teresa biography, Christ said, "I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children. "You are I know the most incapable person—weak and sinful but just because you are that—I want to use You for My glory. Wilt thou refuse?". Mother Teresa could not leave her vows without official permission, and it took about a year and a half until she was free to visit the slums of Calcutta(Mother Teresa

It was September the 10th, 1964 and World war 2 had only just come to a conclusion. Mother Teresa sat on a piping hot train, on a hot summers day in Calcutta. She tried taking up as little space as possible to avoid being crowded which she was to a great extent and deeply swelter. She was on a train from Calcutta to the Himalayan foothills for a retreat. On this train ride Christ spoke to Mother Teresa. She referred to this as 'her second calling' and in her words it was 'a vocation to give up, even at Loreto where I was very happy, to go out into the streets to serve'. "I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children," she heard Christ say to her on the train in those very words. "You are I know the most incapable person - weak and sinful but just because you are that'- I want to use you for my glory. Wilt thou refuse?". A sensation of happiness rushed through her, even though she had been called weak she was honoured. She was very quick to share her vision with her supporters, friends and members of the Loreto sisters that she worked with. She was questioned about her call, and all the intentions and aims she had for doing it.

She told her audience this story to get them to see a side of people that they didn’t necessarily know about. They got to see how this woman was poor and yet she still died smiling and thankful for what life had given her. Mother Teresa wanted the audience to see how much a small gesture really meant to someone because small gestures can create peace. Her personal experiences are meant to have an emotional connection with her audience which results in the audience feeling more included to make changes in their life that would bring more peace to the world. Mother Teressa wants this story to evoke sympathy throughout her audience because this poor woman may have had struggles in her life, but what matters most was her gratitude.

Against her father’s wishes, Teresa ran away to become a nun of the Carmelite Order. Although the convent was crowded, she started right away teaching people the power of mental prayer. She did not just teach women, as nuns often did, but men as well. She did not want to entertain people; instead she wanted to change people’s lives. “She guided nuns not just through strict disciplines, but also through the power of love, and common sense” (Pettinger, 2010). She had a heart

She got permission from the church to found the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, and kept working to better the world through this organization. It was created to have Catholic women dedicate themselves and their lives to the less fortunate in the world, and work to make their lives better through their actions and hard work. Mother Teresa organized this whole group, which still works today with massive numbers behind it, so her impact on society is still not over; she is still touching peoples’ lives because of her love of God and her desire to make a difference in all the lives that she ever came in contact

other people and very rarely helped her own self. Mother Teresa had many good traits and

Following the death of her mother, Saint Teresa began to deviate from the church. In her teenage years, her primary focuses were romance novels, boys, and rebellion. Because of this, her strict father sent her to live with the Augustinian nuns of her province at the age of sixteen where the Sisters helped her to return to her religious faith. In her window, Saint Teresa holds a book and a pen, symbolic of the reforms she made to the Carmelite order, as well as her great writings. In the predella, women are pictured entering Sharon, the home in England for Sisters of the Holy Child

This lead her to follow God’s will, and become a teacher at St Mary’s school, and later become the principle of this school. At the school Mother Teresa, taught history, english and a couple of other subjects to teach the children at the schools. She loved the kids as if they were her own, and equally. Mother Teresa’s second calling was the call to care for the people in the slums of Calcutta, but to do so she needed permission from her superiors, as at this stage Mother Teresa was the principle at St Mary’s. In the following year, Mother Teresa began her work which obeyed God’s call fro her to look after the poor, sick and dying in the streets. Through many difficulties, Mother Teresa obeyed and followed the work which God led her to do, her lives work, and influenced her into making these decisions. The vow of obedience, influence Mother Teresa greatly, in following orders from superiors, and God himself. As said by Mother Teresa, “…by faith, I am catholic. As to my calling, I belong to the world…”, her calling brought her closer to the world, and the calling itself influenced the work which Mother Teresa is known of doing.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta who lived from 1910 until 1997 received permission from the Pope to start her own religious community in order to work amongst the poorest of the poor. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, which is a Roman Catholic religious congregation. She taught Catholic Church doctrine on abortion, contraception, euthanasia, and social justice. She founded modest hospitals, clinics, schools, and centers to care for lepers in India and AIDS patients in the United States. Mother Teresa helped develop hospices and homes for people with tuberculosis. She started soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, counseling programs and orphanages for those with needs and no means to pay for these services. "She addressed the United Nations, the U.S. Congress, and the President of the United States, and boldly defended the life of the unborn and promoted adoption and Natural Family Planning as the only moral alternatives to abortion." (Trigilio and Brighenti 2003, 310) By 1996, Mother Teresa was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the poor in 450 countries around the world. In 2012, the Missionaries of Charity had over 4,500 sisters and was active in 133

Saint Teresa has many qualities to admire and emulate. Even though she may have struggled with her faith, in the beginning, her devotion to God stayed true till the end. She encountered problems at every turn, but she fought for what she believed was right. She trusted in Jesus, knowing that the path ahead of her would cost many sacrifices. God stood by her side through may of her obstacles. Teresa of Jesus is a great example of the Catholic I aspire to become. As Teresa wrote in Interior Castle, “God's will is that no bounds should be set to His

Mother Teresa quickly translated this somewhat vague calling into concrete actions to help the city's poor because her heart was open to them when no one elses was. She began an open-air school and established a home for the dying destitute in a dilapidated building she convinced the city government to donate to her cause which was a very big risk for them because some people would have might not wanted to donate to her because of her religious figure. By 1979 Mother Teresa's groups had more than two hundred different operations in over twenty-five countries around the world, with dozens more ventures on the horizon by her faith and love of God that allowed her to have these many

Women who operated within official Roman Catholic Church institutions had different religious motivations for doing so.

Teresa of Avila was born March 28, 1515 in Avila, Spain. Her father was a merchant, and she was born from her father’s second wife. She was one of ten children born between his father and his two wives. Shortly after her mother’s death, her father sent her to be “entrusted to Augustinian nuns” ("Catholic Encyclopedia”). In 1535 she joined the Carmelite Order and within a year she fell severely ill, leaving her legs paralyzed for three years. Nearing the end of this time, Teresa saw of vision of “the sorely wounded Christ” that changed her life forever (“Catholic Encyclopedia”). Teresa began to experience many manifestations and during this time, most of which were not external, and others felt were from and evil spirit ("Christian Classics Ethereal Library"). Many of the visions that Teresa had reflected the true passion of Christ. During her life, Teresa founded many new converts, all of which reflecting the reform she decided to embark on. During her life, Teresa also

There are many people in this world that we consider great humanitarians. Mother Teresa was a unique individual that stood out of the crowd because of her involvement in helping the sick, poor and dying. She spent everyday of her adulthood caring for people that were in need by setting up the Missionary of Charity along with many homes for the people she cared for. Mother Teresa won many awards throughout her lifetime for her dedication to care for people in need. It is no wonder that Mother Teresa won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and is considered a saint.