At barely 5' tall, Mother Teresa was a woman of extreme power and strength, which she demonstrated through her love of others and her courage to meet people where they were, both in the slums and in the midst of interior desperation.
Born in 1910 in Skopje, a part ot the Ottoman Empire at the time, she knew early on that she was to serve the poor and less-fortunate. Mother Teresa did so as a Loreto nun, educating poverty-stricken young girls, that is until she received her 'call within a call.'
SR THERESE MAGDALA
Missionaries of Charity
'There was this moment, first again in 1946 where she really began to feel Jesus calling her to leave Loreto and to begin a new work amongst the poor in Calcutta.'
Mother Teresa went against the tide of many religious congregations at the time, who desired that the people came to them. Instead, with her servant heart, she went out to the people with the intention of meeting them exactly where they were.
SR THERESE MAGDALA
Missionaries of Charity
'She went in search of souls, to go to where they were, to the most abandoned, to the slums. To what Jesus termed in the loucations, in her prayer, as the dark holes and to really go there and enter there and bring Him there.'
However, her care and thoughtfulness toward people was not only limited to those on the streets, but to everyone she came in contact with throughout the day. She viewed everyone as a person with ultimate dignity, despite their current physical condition and encouraged others to do the same.
SR THERESE MAGDALA
Missionaries of Charity
'For other people, she used to stress very much, do you see the person who is near you? Do you see the person who is next to you, the person maybe in your own family, the person next door, the person in the street who you pass by who is in need? Really to open up our eyes to see the reality of the other person.'
Mother Teresa emphasized that a person does not have to be classifiably 'homelessâ? to help them realize they are loved by God. She firmly believed this and lived it out in her daily life, causing her to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
As such, it is her life that will be recognized on September 4 by the pope in Rome, when he canonizes her a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
