Mother Teresa remembered on her death anniversary

Mother Teresa was born in modern-day Macedonia on August 26, 1910. A saintly figure, Mother Teresa is known all around the world for her humanitarian works in many parts of the world but India in particular.

At a relatively young age, Teresa resolved to strive for the betterment of those who lived their lives in some sort of suffering. She left her home when she was 18 and joined a congregation of female Roman Catholics in Loreto, Italy, named as Sisters of Loreto that primarily focused on teaching English to school-going children.

She took her first religious vows as a nun on May 24, 1931, while she was teaching at a school in Darjeeling, India, and took her solemn vows six years later while she served at the Loreto convent school in Entally in Kolkata. Teresa wanted to play her part in abolishing the poverty prevailing in Calcutta and the unrest emerging in India in the 1940s.

Her missionary work began in 1948 as she traveled to Patna to receive basic medical training and mended the wounds of those living in the slums, unable to pay any medical fee. She laid the foundation of a school in Kolkata which offered various sorts of services catering to the needs of the poor and deserving. A couple of years later, the school evolved into the Missionaries of Charity through the efforts of Teresa and other sisters working there.

Her efforts lead to the formation of the Kalighat Home for the Dying in Kolkata, a leprosy clinic by the name of Shanti Nagar, the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan for young orphans and a number of other such infrastructures aimed towards the betterment of the underprivileged. Her humanitarian efforts were also there to be witnessed in areas of conflict and those affected by natural disasters.

She was the recipient of a number of accolades including the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, the Ramson Magsaysay Award in 1962, the Albert Schweitzer International Prize in 1975, the honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1982 and many others. She died on September 5, 1997.

On September 4, 2016, Pope Francis canonised her as a Saint.