Life Summary: Mother Teresa, Saint of Calcutta

The nun famously known as ‘Saint Teresa of Calcutta’ decided to give her life to being a missionary nun at age 18, attributing it to the will of God. She ended up roaming the slums of India helping the poorest of the poor. This is a timeline of how her life played out before and after her moment of divine inspiration…

1910 – Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu is born in Skopje, Macedonia. She is baptised into the Roman Catholic faith a day after she is born. Her parents are Albanian. Her father owns part of a construction company, has other businesses which buy and sell goods like leather and sugar, is a member of the town council and is often away for work. Her mother spends her free time helping the neediest people in town. She has a sister who is 6 years older and a brother who is 3 years older. 

Early childhood – Agnes accompanies her mother to help the poor on the streets. The family attends the Church of the Sacred Heart which is on the same street as their home and prays every night. Agnes and her sister sing in the church choir. She goes to school at Sacred Heart and later goes to different public schools. She learns different languages and contracts malaria and whooping cough.

Age 8 onwards – Her father dies unexpectedly. Her mother suspects he was poisoned by political enemies but that is never proven. Her father’s partners refuse to give a share of her father’s business to her mother. They are left with only their house. Her mother starts an embroidery business. The family turns to their faith and begin attending Sacred Heart almost every day. Once a year, they go to the shrine of the Lady of Letnice in the mountainous area of Montenegro. 

Age 12 – Agnes believes God is calling her to a spiritual life and tells her mother about it.

Age 14 – Agnes teaches Sunday school to children at church, and joins the ‘Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ to honour the mother of Jesus and pray and serve the poor. Her brother leaves home to attend military school. 

Age 18 – She tells her mother that she is interested in becoming a missionary nun and attributes the choice to the will of God. Her mother and brother are concerned but she persists anyway. She applies to join the Sisters of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as the Loreto Order, which works to bring Christianity to the Hindu and Muslim population in India. She is accepted. 

That same year – She takes a train to Zagreb, Yugoslavia with her mother and sister. There, they part ways. She never sees her mother or sister ever again. With another young woman who is joining the Loreto Order, Agnes takes a train to France and is received by the Mother Superior (nun in charge) of the Loreto Order house in Paris. Because they don’t speak French, an interpreter helps them out. They are then sent by train and boat to Dublin, Ireland, to learn English and study how to become nuns. Once done, they take a train to Italy and board a boat to travel to Bombay, India. 

Age 19 – Agnes arrives in India with her fellow young nun. They sail to Calcutta then take a train to Darjeeling where they reside at the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling. There, she studies English, Bengali (the language of Calcutta) and Hindi (the official language of India) for the next 2 years, while also teaching children at the convent school. 

Age 21 – Agnes takes her first vows and becomes a nun. She is now Sister Teresa, named after a French saint. She returns to Calcutta and teaches girls at St Mary’s which is located within the Loreto Convent. She would do this for the next 17 years.

Age 27 – She takes her final wows as a nun.

Age 33 – The Bengal famine happens. Thousands of people from the countryside enter Calcutta in search of food. Sister Teresa prays for the poor and organises a local chapter of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary at St Mary’s to gather school girls to deliver food and medicine to the poor once a week. 

Age 34 – The Mother Superior at St Mary’s falls ill. Sister Teresa takes over the Mother Superior’s duties and becomes known instead as Mother Teresa. She would be identified by that name for the rest of her life.

Age 36 – Hindus and Muslims fight in the streets of Calcutta for many days. 5000 people are killed and many more injured. Food is scarce and Mother Teresa leaves the convent in search of food, seeing the horror on the streets first hand. She manages to find a British truck to give the girls rice for several days but the scenes of the street remain on her mind even as she goes to her annual retreat in Darjeeling several weeks later. On the train, she receives a message from God to go into the slums and work with and live with the poor. She asks a local priest for help to approach the archbishop of Calcutta to allow her a leave of absence from the convent but the archbishop tells her to wait a year to see if that’s what she really wants. 

Age 37 – After the year is up, she still wants the same and approaches the archbishop again. It takes another year before he allows her to do so, but only if she would do it on a one-year trial basis. They are to decide later if she should continue. She agrees. 

Age 38 – Mother Teresa removes her habit, puts on a sari and leaves Loreto Convent to go into the slums of Motijhil. She has only 3 rupees on her and basic medical training. She finds a place to sleep at the Little Sisters of the Poor—a Roman Catholic organisation that helps the elderly. A priest there also gives her a little bit of money. In the day, she teaches children the Bengali alphabet by drawing in the dirt with a stick. Soon there are children gathering around her lessons and the families of those children soon donate chairs, slates, chalk and a table. She now has a school. As a reward for attending classes and learning lessons, Mother Teresa gives out bars of soap and rents 2 rooms for her school with the rest of the money the priest at the Little Sisters of the Poor had given her. Through the local priest, she gets to stay in a spare room of a local man called Alfred Gomes for free. 

Age 39 – The archbishop gives Mother Teresa permission to continue living in the slums. 10 of her former students approach her and offer to serve the poor too. Gomes builds a new room and bathroom to accommodate all of them. Mother Teresa applies to Rome to form a new order of nuns called the Missionaries of Charity. 

Age 40 – Missionaries of Charity is approved. They vow to remain poor, chaste and obedient, and also to serve the poorest of the poor.

Age 42 – Mother Teresa approaches city officials for a place to establish a home for the dying. They give her an abandoned building behind a large Hindu temple. The Missionaries of Charity scrub the floors and walls and bring in beds. One week later, the home for the dying opens. It’s called Nirmal Hriday—“the place of the pure heart”. Mother Teresa allows dying patients to receive the rituals they desire instead of trying to convert all to Christianity and soon the Hindus next door are offering to help.

Age 43 – The order of the Missionaries of Charity is outgrowing Gomes’ home. The archbishop helps her buy a building in Calcutta to serve as its headquarters. 

Age 45 – Mother Teresa opens a home for orphans and abandoned babies too. She also opens a clinic for lepers, brings in a van to act as a mobile treatment centre and helps to build a village for lepers to live on their own. She funds this village by selling the car the Pope donated to the Missionaries of Charity when he visited India.

Age 55 – The pope gives Mother Teresa permission to open Missionaries of Charity houses all over the world. Soon, houses open in Venezuela, Italy, Australia, Africa, England and the United States. 

Age 59 – The BBC makes a film about Mother Teresa’s charity work and soon money for the Missionaries of Charity comes in from all over the world.

Age 62 – Mother Teresa receives a letter from Albania sent by her sister. Her mother is living there and very ill. Albania does not allow its citizens to travel freely and might not allow Mother Teresa to return to India if she did go there. Mother Teresa chooses not to go. Her mother dies later in the year.

Age 63 – Her sister dies. 

Age 69 – Mother Teresa wins the Nobel Peace Prize for “bringing help to suffering humanity”. Her brother, who had been living in Italy, travels to Norway to see her receive her award. She becomes world famous. 

Age 71 – Her brother dies. 

Age 72 – Mother Teresa leads a group to the war zone of Beirut to pick up children and carry them to Red Cross cars. These children are taken to a school the Missionaries of Charity had opened there 2 years earlier. 

Age 87 – Mother Teresa retires from her post as head of the Missionaries of Charity in March 1997, after a decade of heart attacks, malaria and pneumonia. She dies that September, while still in Calcutta. 

2003, 6 years after her death – Mother Teresa is beatified by the Catholic Church and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

More life summaries available here.

Photographs: John Mathew Smith. Compiler: Sy
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