Mother Teresa of Kolkata

Mother Teresa of Kolkata (1910 - 1997)

In a century crowded with statesmen, warriors, dictators and the cult of celebrity, one woman won not only global notoriety and unbounded admiration for the unlikeliest of achievements.

She waded into the margins of society and fed the hungry, touched the untouchables and raised humanity’s collective consciousness for the suffering of millions. She was a diminutive, shy Albanian nun known as Mother Teresa of Kolkata. 

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje (modern Macedonia) in 1910 to an Albanian Catholic family. As a young girl, Anjezë was spiritually thoughtful rather than precociously pious and by her teens had expressed a desire to become a missionary. In 1928, she packed her bags and set off for Ireland where she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Loreto, a congregation of religious founded in the 16th century and devoted to the education of young women. Anjezë took the name of St. Thérèse of Lisieux for her name in religion but used the Spanish spelling of Teresa. Sr. Teresa was sent to the order’s school in Kolkata, India where she taught the girls of affluent families. She took her first vows in 1931 and her solemn vows in 1937. While she remained outwardly content in her teaching duties, she was increasingly disturbed by the teeming masses of the poor, hungry, naked and dying she saw outside her convent windows. In 1946, while traveling by train, Sr. Teresa experienced a “call within a call”; a private locution from God to serve Him best by not only serving but living as the poorest of the poor. 

In 1948, Teresa left the Loreto convent and began living among the poor of Kolkata, abandoning the formal habit for a white cotton sari with a blue border denoting her Marian devotion. Soon she attracted other young women and with no money or support began to care for the hungry, the sick and the dying on the streets, with a special emphasis on abandoned babies and orphans. In 1950 the Vatican formally recognized her and her sisters as a diocesan congregation, which would in time be called the Missionaries of Charity. 

By the 1960s Mother Teresa had opened houses for lepers, clinics, schools and orphanages throughout India and as word of her work spread, she started similar outreaches in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and eventually the United States. In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and won the plaudits and support of royalty, heads of state and even the United Nations but the work and ministry of this diminutive, laconic nun continued to be centered on the “I Thirst” of Christ. Not a cry to relieve personal agony but an interminable and unquenchable desire for the salvation of souls for God. This included the physical dimension of salvation which meant food, shelter, education and death with dignity. 

By the 1980s Mother Teresa and her mission had become known worldwide but despite the global fame (to which she was supernaturally indifferent) she continued to expand her mission to the most high-risk and dangerous of situations. At the first outbreak of AIDS in the early 8os, while most hospitals and institutions refused to deal with patients with the disease, Mother Teresa set up the first houses of medical and spiritual care. 

After her death, it was revealed that Mother Teresa lived, served and ministered her miraculous work in a state of almost total spiritual darkness, deprivation and feeling of separation from Christ. Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 and was canonized on September 4, 2016. 

The Mother Teresa of Kolkata tile was created in 2020. Our 12" X 12" signed and numbered reproduction is created on stretch canvas and is suitable for matting and framing.