St. Teresa of Calcutta
You gave your life to radiating the love of Jesus to the abandoned—pray for us!

St. Teresa of Calcutta found solace in her faith and was very active in her Jesuit parish as a young girl. When she turned 18, she followed a call to enter religious life and entered a community of sisters in Ireland, taking the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Therese of Lisieux. A year later, she was on her way to India, where her work with the outcast would inspire the world. She was assigned to a community in Calcutta where she taught at a school for girls. In time, she was named the principal of the school, and became known for her charity, unselfishness, and courage. She had a reputation for diligence a working hard, and she had a natural mind for organization and administration.
She was consumed with Jesus’ love for every person, and the desire to offer that love to others became a motivating force in her life from that moment on. She left her community and established her own religious community of sisters, known as the Sisters of Charity. She understood Jesus to be calling her and others to offer his love to the poor and neglected. She entered the slums of Calcutta and began to visit families, where she washed the wounds of children, cared for those who were abandoned and sick, and nursed those who were dying. She began each day by receiving Communion and then went out to the streets with a rosary to encounter “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.” Mother Teresa died on September 5 1997.