09/06/2026
St. Teresa of Calcutta
On September 5, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta, known throughout the world simply as Mother Teresa. Small in stature but extraordinary in faith and determination, she devoted her life to recognizing and serving Jesus Christ in the poorest and most abandoned people of society.
She was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Raised in a devout Catholic family of Albanian heritage, she felt drawn to religious life while still young. At eighteen she left home to join the Sisters of Loreto, eventually traveling to India. There she took the religious name Teresa and spent many years teaching at a girls' school in Calcutta, now Kolkata.
In 1946, while traveling by train to a retreat, Sister Teresa experienced what she later described as a “call within a call.” She became convinced that Christ was asking her to leave the security of the convent school and live among the poorest of the poor. With the permission of her superiors and the Church, she began working in the slums of Calcutta, caring for the sick, teaching poor children, and assisting people who had been abandoned.
In 1950, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity. Their distinctive white sari with blue borders soon became recognized throughout the world. The sisters established homes for the dying, orphanages, shelters, clinics, and other ministries for people whom society often overlooked. Mother Teresa insisted that their work was not merely humanitarian service. For her, each suffering person was an encounter with Christ Himself: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
Mother Teresa became an internationally recognized advocate for the dignity of human life. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, but remained insistent that her mission began with simple acts of love. She challenged people not merely to admire charitable work from a distance, but to recognize loneliness, poverty, rejection, and suffering in their own families and communities.
Only after her death did the world learn more fully that Mother Teresa herself had endured a prolonged period of profound spiritual darkness. For decades she often felt little consolation or sense of God's presence, even while publicly radiating faith and joy. Yet she continued to pray, attend Mass, serve the poor, and remain faithful to her vocation. This hidden struggle makes her witness particularly powerful: holiness does not depend upon always feeling close to God, but upon continuing to love and trust Him even when He seems distant.
Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, in Calcutta. Pope St. John Paul II beatified her in 2003, and Pope Francis canonized her on September 4, 2016. Her feast is observed on the anniversary of her death.
St. Teresa of Calcutta reminds us that we do not need wealth, influence, or extraordinary abilities to become saints. Holiness begins by seeing Christ in the person directly before us—the lonely neighbor, the difficult family member, the forgotten elderly person, the hungry, the sick, and the unwanted—and responding with love.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, servant of the poorest of the poor, pray for us!
