I am Albanian by birth. Now I am a citizen of India. I am also a Catholic nun. In my work, I belong to the whole world. But in my heart, I belong to Christ.
I was very young, no more than twelve years old, when, in the heart of my family, I first experienced the desire to belong completely to God. I thought and prayed about it for six years.

It was at the feet of our Lady of Letnice (in Skopje) where I first heard the divine call, convincing me to serve God and to devote myself to His service. I remember the afternoon of her feast of the Assumption. I was praying with a lighted candle in my hands and singing in my heart, full of joy inside, when I took the decision to wholly devote myself to God through religious life.

Mine was a very happy and united family. Following my vocation was a sacrifice which Christ asked of me and my people. When I was eighteen, I went to the mother house of the Loreto Sisters in Rathfarnham. I left Rathfarnham after only six weeks. I had joined in October 1928 and in January 1929, I went to India to do the noviciate.

I did my noviciate in Darjeeling and took the vows with the Loreto Sisters. For twenty years, I was at work in education in the St. Mary's High School, which was mostly for middle class children. I loved teaching, and in Loreto I was the happiest nun in the world.

On September 10, 1946, while I was going by train to Darjeeling for my spiritual retreat, I experienced a call to renounce everything and to follow Christ into the slums, to serve the poorest of the poor. In a quiet, intimate prayer with our Lord, I heard distinctly, a call within a call. The message was quite clear: I was to leave the convent and help the poor whilst living among them. It was an order.

I left the Loreto Sisters in 1948. Leaving was my greatest sacrifice, and the most difficult thing I have ever done. It was much more difficult than to leave my family and country to enter religious life. But I had the inner command to renounce Loreto to go to serve the poor in the streets, and I had the blessing of obedience.

After leaving Loreto, I was on the street, with no shelter, no company, no helper, no money, no employment, no promise, no guarantee, no security. I prayed, "God, You, only You. I trust in Your call, Your inspiration. You will not let me down." I needed a roof to shelter the abandoned, so I started to search.

Soon, young girls, former students of mine from Loreto, began to join me. They took off their expensive saris with great satisfaction in order to put on our humble cotton ones. This first group was about twelve, by the time the congregation was established.

In 1950, the Holy Father approved of the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity. I didn't choose this name. It came from the call. It is what we are meant to be: carriers of God's love. Since then, girls from all over the world have been joining.

I am nothing. He is all.
I do nothing of my own. He does it.
I am God's pencil.
A tiny bit of pencil with which He writes what He likes.
God writes through us,
and however imperfect instruments we may be,
He writes beautifully.





AWARDS PRESENTED TO MOTHER THERESA

1971 Peace Prize (Pope John XXIII)
1971 Prize of Good Samaritan (Boston)
1971 Kennedy Prize
1972 Koruna Dut Angel of Charity. (President of India)
1973 Templeton Prize
1974 Mater et Magistra
1975 Albert Schweitzer International Prize
1977 Doctor Honoris Causa in Technology (University of Cambridge)
1979 Nobel Peace Prize
1982 Doctor Honoris Cause (Catholic University of Brussels)
1985 Medal of Freedom
1996 Honorary Citizen of USA (only 4th person to ever receive this honor)



Mother Teresa is an example of how one person's dream to make a difference in the world can blossom into a huge success. She began as just one person, affecting the lives of a handful of others. She became the inspiration for the thousands who dedicated their life to her dream, and the light of love for the millions she comforted.

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Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.


Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.

I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.