Mother Teresa

Women Leaders: Mother Teresa ! " ! Synopsis: Mother Teresa was born in 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. She was the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic order of women dedicated to helping the poor. Mother Teresa taught in India for 17 years until, in 1946, she felt called by God to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. Her order established centers for the blind, elderly and disabled, and a leper colony for people with the disease leprosy. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize. She died in September 1997. Considered one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century, she was named a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2016. For Catholics and some other Christian groups, a saint is a holy figure, someone who lived a good life that can be an example to others. ! Early Life ! Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, in what is now the Republic of Macedonia. She was named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Her parents, Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, were devoutly Catholic. ! In 1919, when Agnes was 8 years old, her father fell ill and died. Agnes became very close to her mother, who taught her daughter to have a deep commitment to charity. ! Though they were not wealthy, Drana Bojaxhiu welcomed the city's poor to eat with her family. "My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others," she told her daughter. ! Religious Calling ! Agnes attended a convent-run elementary school and a public high school. When she was 12, she made a pilgrimage to the Church of the Black Madonna in Letnice with her church group. It was there that she first felt a calling to a religious life. Six years later, in 1928, Agnes decided to become a nun and went to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto, a religious congregation dedicated to education. As she began her training to become a nun, she took the name Sister Mary Teresa. ! She was sent to Calcutta in India, where she taught at Saint Mary's High School for Girls, whose students belonged to some of the city's poorest families. In 1937, she took her final vows dedicating her life to the church. It was then that she took on the title "Mother," as was the custom for Loreto nuns. ! Mother Teresa's "Call Within A Call” ! In 1946, Mother Teresa experienced a second calling, which would forever transform her life. She was riding in a train when she said Christ told her to stop teaching and work in the slums of Calcutta with the city's poorest and sickest people. ! Mother Teresa had to obtain permission to leave her convent before she could follow this calling. She did nearly two years later, and entered Calcutta's slums for the first time. ! ! The Missionaries Of Charity ! Mother Teresa began an outdoor school and opened a home for poor people who were dying. In October 1950, the Church gave her permission to begin a new congregation, called the Missionaries of Charity. ! During the 1950s and 1960s, she established a leper colony to care for people with the disease, leprosy. She also opened an orphanage, a nursing home and a string of medical clinics. ! International Charity And Recognition ! In February 1965, Pope Paul VI bestowed the Decree of Praise, an official recognition by the church, upon the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa began expanding internationally. By the time of her death in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity had more than 4,000 nuns in 123 countries around the world. It ran about 600 facilities including orphanages, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and medical clinics. ! In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work "in bringing help to suffering humanity.” ! Controversy ! Despite this widespread praise, Mother Teresa was not beloved by everyone. She was criticized for speaking out against birth control and abortion, and for supporting a legal ban on divorce in Ireland. ! Death And Sainthood ! Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. Since her death, she has remained in the public spotlight. Her letters were published in 2003. They revealed that she struggled with doubting her faith in the last decades of her life. ! Mother Teresa is recognized as one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th century. She was strongly committed to her cause, and was also very organized and an excellent manager. This allowed her to develop a vast and effective international organization that helped impoverished people all across the globe. ! In 2015, Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa involving a Brazilian man who was in a coma. According to the Missionaries of Charity, the man's wife, family and friends prayed to Mother Teresa, and the man woke up without pain and was cured of his symptoms. This was the second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa that the church recognized. ! Mother Teresa was canonized on September 4, 2016. Canonization is the ceremony in which someone is named a saint. Tens of thousands of Catholics and pilgrims from around the world attended the ceremony. They wanted to celebrate the woman who had been called “the saint of the gutters” during her lifetime because of her charitable work with the poor. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1) What is a synopsis and how does this help us understand the reading? 2) Write a paragraph explaining what the central idea of the article is. Use at least 2 examples from the text that support your answer. 3) Choose a virtue that you feel Mother Teresa required for her work. Explain how it was important. Use specific ideas from the text to reference and support your claim. ! Vocabulary What I believe it means What is means in the text humanitarian congregation leper devoutly.

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