08/31/2026
She knew His thirst well. The type of thirst Jesus felt as he hung from the cross, abandoned and rejected by mankind. She saw it on the faces of the dying. She found it while digging people out of trash cans in the slums. She heard it in the cries of abandoned babies in dark alleys. The repulsive smell of rotting flesh kept anyone from going near these people...but Mother Teresa saw nothing but the face of Jesus.
He kept saying the same words to her: “I THIRST”. These two words were etched in the depths of her soul. In fact, Jesus told her very clearly in the early years of her vocation that He “thirsted for souls” and showed her how deeply it hurt Him to see the poor so neglected and ignorant of His love. He asked her to start a religious community dedicated to serving the poorest victims of society, and by the end of her life, it would have over 4,000 members and extend to 123 countries around the world.
She was born “Anjezë (Agnes) Gonxha” on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. She grew up in a Catholic family and was heavily influenced by the Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart where they attended. At the age of 12, Gonxha felt compelled to be a missionary in India. She left her home at the age of 18 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland.
Gonxha took the name Sister Mary Teresa and moved to Calcutta, India, one year later. She made her Final Profession of Vows in 1937 and served with the Sisters for twenty years as a teacher and Principal. In 1948, after two full years of intense discernment, she left Loreto to answer her call to serve the poor.
She spent her first days washing the sores of children, visiting families, and nursing the sick and dying. She searched for the unwanted, unloved, and uncared-for souls in the slums of India, and found Christ in their eyes. In October 1950, the Missionaries of Charity was established.
Mother Teresa was called “the saint of the gutters”. She died on September 5, 1997, which is now her liturgical feast day. Her cause for canonization was opened less than two years later, and Pope Francis canonized her on September 4, 2016.
Patron saint of World Youth Day, the Missionaries of Charity, and co-patron of the Archdiocese of Calcutta.
St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!
Her relic can be found in the In Memoriam Shrine, number 937
https://www.mariasteinshrine.org/
