Missionaries of Charity

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

"To those who say they admire my courage,
I have to tell them that I would not have any
if I were not convinced that each time
I touch the body of a leper,
a body that reeks with a foul stench,
I touch the same Christ I receive in the Eucharist."
Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity

“Each individual person has been created to love and be loved. Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian doesn’t matter race, doesn’t matter religion, every single man, woman, child is a child of God created in the image of God. And that’s what we look at. Our work is to give service to the poorest of the poor. We give the Joy of Loving. Love has to be put into action.” Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was born in Albania in 1910. Her father was highly educated and a wealthy building contractor and when he died at age 42, caused his wife and three children to experience abject poverty. Mother Teresa joined the Loretta Sisters when she was 18 and in 1929 went to Calcutta where she taught Geography at a Girls School for seventeen years.

God called Sister Teresa on September 10th, 1946, to take care of the sick, dying, hungry, naked, homeless and poorest of the poor. By loving them she would be loving God. She immediately approached the higher authorities of the Catholic Church to ask permission to create the order of the “Missionaries of Charity”. After two years her request was granted. Without any financial support from the church, Mother Teresa started out with nothing but a full heart and a clear purpose.

The order was established in 1949 and its charter states that they should only receive monies that individual ...

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The order was established in 1949 and its charter states that they should only receive monies that individual people give them. Their sole source of support should come from divine providence and through their prayer for the greatest good. It takes 9 ½ years to become a Missionary of Charity and each girl must have the spirit of joy and happiness, the spirit of work and want to labour for the poor.

Today this order is in more than 60 countries and Mother Teresa’s Sisters are putting love into actions by offering help and service to the spiritually and materially impoverished. In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian contributions around the world. Most people recognize her as a saint and she is greatly missed.

Charity work in Calcutta:

In 1948 Mother Teresa became an Indian citizen and studied nursing with the American Medical Missionaries in the Indian city of Patna. After returning to Calcutta, she founded the Missionaries of Charity. In 1949 a young girl from the city of Bengal joined her and they focused their efforts on teaching poor children on the streets to read and care for themselves. Over the next few years students from Saint Mary 's joined her in Calcutta, and devoted their lives to serving the poor.

In 1952 she was granted permission to use the abandoned temple to the Hindu goddess Kali. Here the Kalighat Home for the Dying was founded. Dying citizens from Calcutta were brought here for care before they died.

This Order was started in Calcutta by Mother Teresa, and has two branches in Banglore which takes care of the destitute, abandoned and dying of all Castes and Religions. It survives on the Love of God, and by donations given by persons of all Faiths. They reach out to the poorest of poor, and take the old people and children into their premises and look after them with the Love of the Lord, bathing their wounds and helping those who are dying to die with dignity and surrounded by the Love of the Lord. Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhiu was born in Albania (* see below) on 27th August in 1910. She entered the order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto at the age of 18, and took the name of Teresa. She taught in the Order's school in Calcutta until 1946, when she experienced what she described as a "call within a call" to aid the desperately poor of India in a way that required she leave her Convent. She received permission from Rome to do this and began her work by bringing dying persons from the streets into a home where they could die in peace and dignity. She also established an Orphanage. Slowly other women joined her, and in 1950 she received official approval for a congregation of sisters, called the Missionaries of Charity, whose members are dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. Mother Teresa was awarded the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.