Mother Teresa began her life of service to others on August 27, 1910 and was named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxiu. Agnes’s parents taught her the true meaning of charity is to care for others. She learned much about service from her family and learned about the importance of service through her religion. When Agnes was at the age of 12, Father Jambrekovich who helped Agnes decided what to do with her future told her the Catholic missionaries that helped the poor in Calcutta, India.
At 18, Agnes decided to become a nun and applied to work with the Order of Loreto, the missionary nuns who worked in eastern India. On September 25, 1928, Agnes left her family and friends in Skopje to begin her life of service in India. First Agnes learned to speak English, the language they would teach the schoolchildren in India, at the Loreto Abbey in Dublin, Ireland, where she was given a new name, Mary Teresa. In 1929, Sister Teresa arrived in India, and she continued her study of the English language and began to study Hindi and Bengali, which were the major
languages in Calcutta, India. Besides, she also learned how to take care of the sick and dying by helping nurses at a medical clinic. Her next assignment was at the Loreto convent school in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to wealthy children. In 1937, Sister Teresa became the head of the school as Mother Teresa. Although Mother had accomplished a lot in her short life as a nun, she was much more eager to do what she came to India to do--- help the poorest of the poor.
In 1948, she left the convent and went to Patna, India, to study medicine. Then in December of 1948, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta to begin serving the poor. In 1950, Mother Teresa asked the church officials in Rome for official recognition of their new order of nuns because there were one of her students at Loreto convent, Subhasini Das, and other 12 sisters had joined her. In 1955, Mother Teresa opened Shishu Bhavan, the Children’s Home of the Immaculate Heart, where Mother Teresa and her nuns took care of orphans and sick children as if they were their own. In 1957, after a small group of lepers visited Mother Teresa, the Missionaries of Charity decided to open Shanti Nagar, a place where the lepers could learn a trade and support themselves. They also set up clinics throughout Calcutta. Moreover, Mother Teresa rode through the streets in a van equipped with medical supplies. In a short time, Mother Teresa became famous throughout the world. Volunteers from all over the world came to India to help Mother Teresa with her work. By 1990, she had helped to open 430 homes in 95 countries.
In 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of her great work. Mother Teresa continued to serve those in need until her death on September 5, 1997. Mother Teresa’s goal had been to help the poorest of the poor and she sacrificed a great deal to reach this goal.
All people around the world know Mother Teresa not because she was the richest woman or the most popular superstar, but she devoted her whole life to the world.
Mother Teresa seemed to be born with compassion and purity. At the age 18, unlike general teenagers at her age, she gave up the freedom of having entertainment and the liberty of experiencing some “crazy” activities, and she decided to become a nun to help those who suffered poverty and starvation. On the way to helping the poor, Mother Teresa were faced with not only physical and mental torture, but also doubt from her superiors in convent school about her ability to help the poor outside the convent walls and doubt from the people about her motivation of opening Children’s Home of the Immaculate Heart. However, she stuck to her goal and many volunteers from all over the world were moved by her spirit and joined her to help the poor. She really set a great example for us, and her story can remind that everyone deserves compassion and that we can all help those in need.
In my mind, Mother Teresa was like Florence Nightingale and was like Albert Schweitzer. All of them respected for life and were willing to sacrifice themselves to make the world better. Although they led different careers and accomplished different achievements, they had one in common-they “love” people.
I sincerely hope that I can bear what Mother Teresa did for the world in my mind. And when being a doctor, I can always take patients’ welfare as top priority.
