Are you curious to learn some weird and wonderful facts about Mother Teresa?
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It’s time to chat about Mother Teresa facts.
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Facts about Mother Teresa
1 – Mother Teresa was born on August 26th, 1910 at Skopje, North Macedonia. Her name at birth was Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu.
2 – Mother Teresa’s father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was 8 years old.
3 – When she was 18, her sister joined the Loreto Sisters in Ireland and eventually convinced mother teresa to join as well.
4 – In 1929, Mother Teresa took her vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and took the name Sister Teresa of Calcutta.
5 – In 1946, she received a special call from God that led her to start missionary work in India.
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6 – She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 which is made up of over 4500 sisters who serve people living in poverty around the world with love and dignity.
7 – Her family moved to Skopje, Macedonia when she was 8 years old.
8 – In 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work “to bring relief to suffering humanity.”
9 – Mother Teresa died on September 5th 1997 after contracting pneumonia while visiting Rome.
10 – On 5 September 1997 she died aged 87 after suffering a heart attack while visiting Rome.
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11 – In 2016 Mother Teresa was posthumously granted the title of a Saint, when she was canonized by Pope Francis.
12 – In 1937 she moved to India where she taught geography and history for eight years.
13 – In 1948 she left her teaching position to become a missionary and founded the Missionaries of Charity with 12 fellow nuns.
14 – Her legacy lives on through her work with the poor and sick around the world as well as through awards such as Nobel Peace Prize (1979), Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985), Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971), Templeton Foundation’s Prayer Award(1984).
15 – In 1979 she founded “The House of the Dying” which would be renamed Shanti Nagar or “City of Peace.”
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16 – In her lifetime she opened more than 130 missions across six continents.
17 – Her last public appearance was at a meeting with Pope John Paul II at Vatican City on April 29th, 1997.
18 – In addition to running homes for orphans and homeless children, she opened a leprosy center and AIDS hospice as well as schools and training centers.
19 – When asked about suffering she said “God doesn’t ask us to understand this world but we can only accept it.”
20 – The Missionaries of Charity’s first house was established in 1950 by Mother Teresa herself with help from her friend Father Joseph Langford.
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21 – Her motto was “We are all God’s children.”
22 – Her favorite prayer was “Lord give me chastity and purity but not yet.”
23 – Her work has been recognized by Nobel Peace Prize (1979), Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris Award (1963), and India’s Padma Shri award for social service (1962).
24 – She joined the Sisters of Loreto in 1928 and took her vows as a nun in 1929. In 1948 she became headmistress of the convent school in Calcutta (now Kolkata).
25 – Her last words were “I am going home to God.”
