Saint20th century · Feast September 5
Also known as Mother Teresa, Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Teresa of Kolkata
A missionary sister who founded the Missionaries of Charity and served people experiencing extreme poverty, abandonment, illness and loneliness.
Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Teresa joined the Sisters of Loreto and taught in India before discerning a call to serve people living in the poorest conditions of Kolkata. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, whose work spread globally. Her private writings later revealed a long experience of spiritual darkness beneath her public energy.
Teresa served amid colonial and post-independence India, rapid urban poverty and growing global media attention to humanitarian work.
Seeing Christ in the unwanted, small acts of love, Eucharistic prayer and faithful service through spiritual dryness.
Teresa speaks to people serving amid poverty or loneliness and to believers who continue loving even when prayer feels empty.
People turn to St Teresa of Calcutta in matters of:
Jesus, through St Teresa of Calcutta’s intercession teach us to recognise you in people who are poor, lonely, sick or forgotten and to love through concrete action. Amen.
1910
Is born in Skopje
1928
Leaves home to enter religious life
1946
Discerns a call to serve the poorest people in Kolkata
1950
The Missionaries of Charity receive formal approval
1997
Dies in Kolkata
2016
Is canonised
Source-quality status: unverified prototype