“Life is not worth living unless it is lived for others.”- Mother Teresa. A name that resonates with charity and humility, she taught us the true meaning of selfless living.
A life so dedicated to the cause of providing for others, that it has come to be identified with the stories of the million lives she touched with her healing hand. Decorated with the highest of awards and recognitions worldwide, our humble lady had but one thing to say, “I personally am most unworthy, and I having avowed poverty to be able to understand the poor, I choose the poverty of our people. But I am grateful and I am very happy to receive it in the name of the hungry, of the naked, of the homeless, of the crippled, of the blind, of the leprous, of all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared, thrown away of the society, people who have become a burden to the society, and are ashamed by everybody.” (10 December, 1979, Nobel Prize Speech)
While her deeds of selflessness are no hidden fact, on her 111th birth anniversary, we bring to you the journey of Agnes Gonhxa Bojaxhiu to Mother Teresa, a woman who might have been physically short but had the most magnanimous of souls.
Youngest of the three siblings, Mother Teresa was born as Agnes Gonhxa Bojaxhiu in a humble household of Skopje, Albania (now, Macedonia). A family of ardent nationalists and devout Catholics, their father always taught them to uphold the ideals of ‘Fatherland and Faith’. Agnes lost her father at the young age of 8 but kept his teachings dear to her throughout her life.
Their faith was reinforced by the lessons from their mother who ensured that the children not only practised their religion but incorporated it into their day to day lives. The seeds of generosity and philanthropy were sown at a very young age in all children of the Bojaxhiu household. Their mother, Drana, liberally bestowed upon the underprivileged some money to start their dignified living and free meals. “My child, never eat a single mouthful unless you are sharing it with others."
Drana would often say “some of them are our relations” but “all of them are our people.” Drana’s powerful example enabled Agnes to take on responsibility so grand of feeding and serving millions of people later in her life.
Agnes was only 12 when she announced her desire to become a nun. It was a spiritual calling supported by her family. Agnes was the weakest of the three siblings, to the extent that her mother believed that she would die soon but her nundom was a sign that God had other plans. She would be with her Lord if not in heaven, but on Earth.
She became heavily involved with the church, as a singer in the choir, or playing the mandolin, or spending hours reading at the parish library.
Her life got a purpose when Father Franjo Jambrekovic joined the Sacred Heart Parish in 1925. He was indirectly engaged with the Yugoslav Jesuit missionaries working in Bengal in India and would often talk about the pitiable conditions the poor and infirm lived in.
Agnes had found her calling. Instilled within her was a zeal to do everything that she could to help the conditions of these people in India. She talked to her cousin and started giving mandolin lessons, the money that she collected was sent for the poor in India.
At the age of 18, Agnes decided to apply to the order of the Loreto Sisters, an Irish branch of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Paris who worked with the Jesuits in Bengal.
She received blessings from her mother and Father Jambrekovic but her brother who was serving in the Albanian army then had his doubts. Agnes wrote to him saying, “you think you are important because you are an officer serving a king with two million subjects. But I am serving the King of the whole world.”
On January 6, 1929, Mother Teresa arrived at the port of Calcutta, the city she was to call her own, and of the people who would call her theirs.
At the Loreto Novitiate in Darjeeling, she took her first vows and to symbolize her new life with God, she took up a new name- Teresa.
She was highly inspired by the late nineteenth-century French nun, Thรฉrรจse Martin. But since there was already a nun at the convent who had named herself Thรฉrรจse, Agnes took on the Spanish spelling “Teresa.” At the convent, she came to be known as “Bengali Teresa” for her command over the language was so pure.
Soon, she got a job as a teacher at the St. Mary’s school, Calcutta, where she taught for 17 years, later also serving as the headmistress for a brief period. The students were mostly orphans, girls from broken homes, and children with single parents. It was here that she came to be prefixed with “Ma” or “Mother” by the children of the school, whom she became deeply attached to and nurtured with utmost care and concern. From half-past five in the mornings to late evenings, she worked tirelessly striving to make a better living for the children.
In Calcutta, she was associated with a local congregation of the Loreto Sisters. Here, her black habit and veil of the order were replaced with a white and blue saree, an outfit that became a defining characteristic feature of Mother Teresa later in her life.
Her life was spent serving the affected children and patients of World War I and the Bengal famines. At the age of 27, she took her final vows and was reborn into her new life, when India, too, was in a state of metamorphosis, from a colony to a democracy. But India’s freedom came with a price, it was accompanied by large-scale communal violence, and was immediately preceded by the atrocities of World War II. Teresa faced the prospect of having a thousand children go hungry every day at the school, the situation scared her but also inspired her.
The rest as we know is history, a history so replete with selflessness and generosity, embedded in gold but shrouded in a white with a blue-trimmed cloth.
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