St. Teresa of Calcutta

Saint of the Week

Teresa of Calcutta, Saturday, Sept. 5

Born Agnes Gonxha the future saint was born in Albania in 1910.  At age 18 she left home to join the Sisters of Loreto in Ireland, taking the name Sister Mary Teresa, to undertake missionary work. She was sent to Calcutta, India where she taught in the community’s school for girls. On train ride returning from a retreat, she received an inspiration, “a call within a call” to satisfy the Lord’s thirst for souls. Two years of testing and discernment followed. Through interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to Teresa his pain at the neglect of the poor. This led to her founding in 1950, the Missionaries of Charity, a congregation that ministers to the poorest of the poor and to those nearest to death. As the community grew and opened convents throughout the world, Mother Teresa founded the Missionary Brothers and then the Missionary Priests of Charity. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 as well as prestigious awards from the governments of India and the United States for her work around the world.

She was canonized by Pope Francis in 2016. St. Teresa visited our Diocese in 1995 and participated at the Mass celebrated by Bishop John Reiss on the Feast of Corpus Christi at the Cathedral of St. Mary, Trenton. Bishop Reiss formally invited the Missionaries of Charity to minister in the Diocese and they soon established a convent in Asbury Park.