{"id":1235,"date":"2010-10-31T21:30:07","date_gmt":"2010-11-01T02:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"Christened Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu,\u00a0Mother Teresa went by her middle name, Gonxha.\u00a0Born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and now the capital of Macedonia.\r\n\r\nHer father had a generous spirit and tolerance for other faiths. Beca"},"modified":"2010-10-31T22:13:38","modified_gmt":"2010-11-01T03:13:38","slug":"about-mother-teresa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/cornerstonef13\/mother-teresa-is-dead\/about-mother-teresa\/","title":{"rendered":"About Mother Teresa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christened Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu,\u00a0Mother Teresa went by her middle name, Gonxha.\u00a0Born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and now the capital of Macedonia.<\/p>\n

Her father had a generous spirit and tolerance for other faiths. Because he was so well respected, he held a seat on the city council.\u00a0Her mother was severely pious and considered any moment not dedicated to Christ, wasted. It was she who maintained the family\u2019s commitment to the poor, opening their home to the needy and adopting the orphans.<\/p>\n

When she was 18 years old she told her mother she wanted to be a missionary.\u00a0Her mother forbade it and sent her to her room for 24 hours.\u00a0In October of 1928, feeling called to a life of mission work, Gonxha boarded a train leaving Macedonia. She would never see her mother or sister again: \u201cDuring her 7-week trip, she wrote, \u201cGoodbye, oh mother dear, may God be with you all. A higher power compels me toward torrid India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon arriving in India, Gonxha joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish based religious order based in Calcutta.\u00a0She chose her new name of Teresa out of her admiration for St. Therese of Lisieux, a 19th century Carmelite nun who pioneered \u201cThe Little Way,\u201d which stressed doing little things with great love for god.<\/p>\n

She took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These vows may seem restrictive, but she viewed them as liberating. Poverty meant freedom from worrying about possessions; chastity meant the freedom to love many rather than one; and obedience means freedom from excessive self-interest.\u00a0In 1942, she made a fourth vow \u201cNot to refuse [God] anything\u2026under pain of mortal sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

In summer of 1946, Calcutta was shaken by religious rioting. Teresa ventured into the city to gather food, and the brutality she saw shook her deeply. Seeing she was near exhaustion, her religious superior sent her on a retreat in Darjeeling.Getting on her train trip from the lowlands to the city in the Himalayan foothills, she heard Christ\u2019s voice and conversed with him. Christ affectionately calls her, \u201cmy little one.\u201d She answers him as, \u201cmy own Jesus.\u201d He tells her he wants her to leave Loreto and found a new religious order. She also experienced three visions of the crucifixion, one of which Mother Mary supports Teresa while her son asks, \u201cwill you refuse to do this for me?\u201d\u00a0She heard Jesus say \u201cthere are plenty of nuns to look after the rich and well-to-do people but for my very poor there are absolutely none. For them I long\u2014them I love.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1947, India achieved independence from British rule after a largely peaceful campaign led by Mohandas Ghandi but at birth the nation split into two parts: India, with a Hindu majority and largely Muslim in Pakistan. Fighting between Hindus and Muslims would claim a million lives and produce some 14 million refugees. Just months before Mother Teresa started her new ministry, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu radical. Hindu refugees streamed in from Pakistan to Calcutta. The homeless population so overwhelmed the train stations and the streets that there was no help for the dying or for sick children who ended up dying of curable diseases.<\/p>\n

In 1950 she receives Vatican approval to what will become the Missionaries of Charity.\u00a0From 4:40am-10pm they prayed they walked to minister to the needy. They were to brush their teeth with ashes. Their saris were made of grain sacks and were undecorated except one wide and two narrow blue stripes. Only a medically trained nun convinced Mother Teresa to provide a more sustaining diet than rice and water.<\/p>\n

Early on she asked permission to create a branch of \u201cco-workers.\u201d These volunteers were often as hands on in the ministry to the poor as any of the missionaries but then they went home, often to comfortable residences and many were not Catholic or even Christians. For every Christian who had aided her in India, there were 10 non-Christians.<\/p>\n

In 1952 she established her first Home for the Dying in Calcutta. This raised a lot of controversy because the Hindu caste system only allows members of the lowest castes to deal with the dead, who were considered spiritually unclean. One day an enraged mob entered the hospice and threatened to kill her but she replied calmly, \u201cif you kill us, we would only hope to reach God sooner.\u201d They retreated and she earned the respect of her greatest critics because of the tolerance and equal treatment she gave to all faiths.<\/p>\n

In 1955 she established her first home for orphans in Calcutta.\u00a0Mother Teresa also led a leprosy campaign which conflicted with the Hebrew Bible and the medieval Christian bible which regarded leprosy as a spiritual impurity. Even though the church has worked with the poor for centuries, Mother Teresa removed the traditional arm\u2019s length distance between the benefactor and the beneficiary and instead created a mutual bond with the people by living as they did.<\/p>\n

By the late 1970\u2019s, 158 Missions are Charity foundations across the world had been established.\u00a0In 1971, She was awarded the Pope John XXII Peace prize and the Nobel peace prize in 1979.\u00a0Mother Teresa\u2019s heart gave out and she died on September 5, 1997.<\/p>\n

Eight years after Theresa\u2019s death, the book \u201cCome be my Light\u201d was published by Father Kolodiejchuk. It was a collection of letters and notes written by Mother Teresa during the years of her greatest achievements. They revealed that from the moment she began her work in 1948 until her death 49 years later, with an exception of a five week period in 1958, Teresa felt unable to feel the presence of God. Father Kolodiejchuk was Mother Teresa\u2019s chosen \u201cpostulator.\u201d The postulator is the person chosen to research the life of anyone being considered for sainthood. He published them to make the argument in favor of canonization.<\/p>\n

Mother Teresa had found solace in communication with Joseph Nuener. He was a theologian priest who assured her that her very craving for God was a \u201csure sign\u201d of his hidden presence in her life and that his apparent absence could be the \u201cspiritual side\u201d of her work for Jesus.<\/p>\n

She embraced the idea that her spiritual dryness was actually another way to share in the same passion of the same Christ who said on the cross, \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\n