Mother Teresa: Legacy of a Humanitarian
Few are the people in modern history whose names are synonymous with charity. Mother Teresa is one of those few people and by far one of the most notable in the Catholic Church. Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in Albania, Mother Teresa was inspired by missionary work in Bengal and decided at age 12 to devote her life to the Catholic Church. She learned Bengali and began teaching in a schoolhouse near the Himalayas. She took her vows of sisterhood in what was then Calcutta in 1937 and for about 10 years lived a traditional canonical life.
In 1946, she received what she termed "the call within the call"—to leave the convent and live among India's most needy. She began wearing a cotton sari instead of a traditional Loreto habit. She became an Indian citizen, received basic medical training, and began to take of the starving and forgotten in the streets she called home.
During this time, she experienced unprecedented challenges. She had to beg in the streets for food and supplies. But when the relative comfort of the convent lured her, she remained steadfast in her belief that her calling was to remain out in the field.
In 1950, she received the go ahead form the Catholic Church to establish the Congregation Missionaries of Charity. The organization's aim was to serve "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." The congregation began with 12 members but by 1997 had grown to more than 4,000 sisters running orphanages and AIDS hospices and caring for refugees, alcoholics, the blind, the disabled, and victims of flood, famine, and epidemics worldwide.
Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and editor-at-large of America magazine, told The Huffington Post, "Her very name became a byword for charity. And when it was learned, after her death, that she had experienced spiritual darkness for the second half of her life and had to rely on her earlier mystical experiences, she was seen for what she is: one of the greatest saints in Christian history."
Mother Teresa is so beloved in the Catholic Church that Pope John Paul II waived the normal five-year waiting period after death to start the beatification process for her. Her canonization may take place as early as 2016.
The Letters, chronicling the life and works of Mother Teresa, opens in theaters on Dec. 4. Check out the movie, and see her life for yourself.
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Original article from TakePart
