September 5, Sainthood Day of Mother Teresa

2025-09-05 08:04:00, Aktualitet CNA

September 5, 1997 marks the passing of the missionary and humanist, mother of the poor throughout the world, Saint Teresa.

Mother Teresa was an Indian Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje, to an Albanian family, then the center of the Vilayet of Kosovo in the Ottoman Empire.

She lived in her homeland for eighteen years and then moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived most of her life.

To be canonized as a saint, she had to be recognized with a second miracle, according to the rules of the Catholic Church.

The second miracle was recognized by Pope Francis in December 2015, paving the way for her to be declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

Her canonization took place on September 4, 2016, the day before the 19th anniversary of her death on September 5, which is also known as her feast day, the Day of the Canonization of Mother Teresa.

On October 19, 2003, she was beatified and named "Blessed Teresa of Calcutta."

Mother Teresa has been honored with the highest awards and honors, including: the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic congregation, which in 2012 had more than 4,500 sisters and was active in 133 countries.

They provided homes for people infected with HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis; they distributed food, mobile clinics, counseling programs for children and families, orphanages, and schools. Members had to adhere to vows of "chastity, poverty, and obedience," as well as a fourth condition, to provide "free and wholehearted service to the poorest of the poor."

On September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as a "call within a call" when she traveled by train to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling from Calcutta for her annual retreat.

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton sari with a blue stripe. Teresa took Indian citizenship, spent several months in Patna to receive basic medical training at the Holy Family Hospital, and went into the slums.

She founded a school in Motijheel, Calcutta, before turning to caring for the poor and hungry. In early 1949 Teresa was joined in her efforts by a group of young women and laid the foundations for a new religious community helping "the poorest of the poor".

Her efforts quickly attracted the attention of Indian officials, including the prime minister.

On October 7, 1950, Teresa received Vatican permission for the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. In her words, it would care for "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, for all those people who feel unwanted, unloved by all society, people who have become a burden to society and are ashamed of everyone."

In 1952, Teresa opened her first hospice with the help of Calcutta officials. She converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, free for the poor, and called it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday).

September 5, Sainthood Day of Mother Teresa

At the height of the Siege of Beirut in 1982, Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front-line hospital by brokering a temporary ceasefire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the hospital to evacuate the young patients.

As Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, Mother Teresa expanded her efforts to communist countries that had rejected the Missionaries of Charity. She began dozens of projects, unsettled by criticism of her anti-abortion and anti-divorce stances.

Teresa traveled to help the hungry in Ethiopia, victims of radiation in Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, she returned to Albania for the first time, opening a Missionaries of Charity house in Tirana.

By 1996, Teresa had operated 517 missions in over 100 countries. Her Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands, serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world.

The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx borough of New York City, and by 1984 the congregation operated 19 institutions across the country./ CNA