MOTHER TERESA

An ethnic Albanian born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (Albanian: [aˈɲɛz ˈɡɔɲdʒe bɔjaˈdʒiu]) (gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "little flower" in Albanian) on 26 August 1910, she considered 27 August, the day she was baptised, to be her "true birthday".Her birthplace of Skopje, now capital of the Republic of Macedonia, was at the time part of the Ottoman Empire.Her family continued to live in Skopje until 1934 , when they moved to Tirana in Albania.

She was the youngest of the children of Nikollë and Dranafile Bojaxhiu (Bernai). Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old. Her father may have been from Prizren, Kosovo while her mother may have been from a village near Yakova.

According to a biography written by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 had become convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. Her final resolution was taken on 15 August 1928, while praying at the shrine of the Black Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.

She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never again saw her mother or sister.

Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland, to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India. She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains,where she learnt Bengali and taught at the St. Teresa's School, a schoolhouse close to her convent.She took her first religious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries,but because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for the Spanish spelling Teresa.

She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta. Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1944 was appointed headmistress.

Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta(Kolkata).The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim violence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.