Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Mother Teresa (1910-1997), born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Albania, founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 and spent nearly five decades serving the dying poor in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. Canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2016, she became a global icon of sacrificial love and service to the marginal. Her private letters, published posthumously in Come Be My Light (2007), reveal decades of spiritual desolation and doubt, demonstrating that radical obedience and profound service can coexist with the mystical experience of God's hiddenness.

Mother Teresa is venerated globally as a saint of radical charity, sacrificial love, and service to the marginalized. In the Catholic tradition, she exemplifies holiness expressed through works of mercy toward the poorest. Her canonization in 2016 confirmed her status as a saint of the universal Church. The revelation of her decades-long spiritual darkness paradoxically strengthened her witness, demonstrating that faith, obedience, and charity can persist in the complete absence of consoling religious experience—a profound testimony to naked trust in God. She is honored in ecumenical circles as a prophetic voice calling the Church to serve the dying, the sick, and the abandoned.

Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born on August 26, 1910, in Üsküb (modern-day Skopje, North Macedonia), to an ethnic Albanian family. Following what she described as a calling from Christ at age 12, she entered religious life at 18, joining the Sisters of Loreto and taking the religious name Sister Mary Teresa. After teaching in a Catholic girls' school in Calcutta for 17 years, she experienced what she termed a 'call within a call' on September 10, 1946, while traveling by train to a retreat. In a vision, Christ appeared to her calling her to serve the poorest of the poor. In December 1948, with permission from her religious superiors, she left the Loreto convent and founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 to serve 'the poorest of the poor'—particularly the dying destitute in the streets of Calcutta. Under her leadership, the Missionaries of Charity grew to operate hospices, hospitals, orphanages, and schools serving the terminally ill, abandoned children, and the destitute across India and the world. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Her canonization by the Roman Catholic Church was officially declared on September 4, 2016, by Pope Francis. However, the posthumous publication of her private letters and journals (Come Be My Light, 2007) revealed that for approximately fifty years of her religious life, she experienced what she called 'darkness,' a profound absence of God's felt presence. Rather than diminishing her witness, this revelation deepened recognition of her radical obedience and faith—she continued in service and prayer despite the absence of consolation. She died on September 5, 1997, at the Missionaries of Charity motherhouse in Calcutta.

• Founder