Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, the youngest of three children of an Albanian builder, on August 26th, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. At the age of 18, she joined the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto in Ireland. It was here that she chose the name Teresa, in memory of Saint Terese of Lisieux.
Mother Teresa later came to Calcutta to teach. However, she always wanted to serve the poor, and she received what she believed to be a call from God, telling her to devote her to working with the poorest in India. So she got permission to establish a new order of nuns, called The Missionaries of Charity. She and her fellows gathered dying people off the streets of Calcutta and brought them to this home to care for them. Mother Teresa’s first orphanage was started in 1953. While in 1957, she and her Missionaries of Charity began working with lepers. In the years following, her homes have been established in hundreds of locations in the world. Mother Teresa died in 1997.
Mother Teresa has been given many awards, including the ‘Padmashree Award’, ‘The Nobel Peace Prize’, ‘The Pope John XXIII Peace Prize’, and ‘Medal of Freedom’ as well as many more. All through her life, she served people suffering from various incurable diseases, and those unwanted by the society… so is it any wonder that she is called ‘The Angel of Mercy’?