Mother Teresas Life and Work - Essay Example

Research on Mother Teresa Mother Teresa was born in Skopje (present day Macedonia), a largely Muslim town in the Balkans. She was named Agnes, and later changed her name to Teresa as a sign that she was meant for a higher service for mankind. At the age of 18 years old, i.e. in the year 1928, she joined the sisters of Loreto in Dublin where she had decided to be a nun. In the year 1931, she became a teacher at St. Mary’s high school in Calcutta, India, where she was called Sister Teresa. She later became Mother Teresa in 1937 and promised to be the “Spouse of Jesus for Eternity”. She left the Loreto order in the year 1948, as the principal to begin the missionaries of charity in Calcutta (Rai, Chawla, 193). Mother Teresa did a great job considering that she started out as a single woman who had nothing, no supplies or money. She engaged herself in the work of helping millions of people; those were starving or starving in the streets of India. Mother Teresa came from a religious background, with her father dying unexpectedly when she was only 8 years old, her devoted and prayerful family went to the pilgrimage annually (Rai, Chawla, 193). Her work was inspired by what she observed was happening to God’s people; the suffering that the poor were going through, even with herself coming from a very humble background. In her first acts of charity, while walking around the slums, she found some little children and started teaching them. She did not have classrooms or chalkboard yet it later grew into becoming a missionary of charity with the Missionaries of Charity being established in October, 1950. Her work did not stop there as in 1952, she opened a home for the dying called Nirmal Hriday (“The place for the immaculate heart”), which could serve as a hospital and place where people were given opportunity to die with dignity, with the rituals of their faith. Shishu Bhavan, the first children’s home was opened by the missionaries of Charity. The home provided food; medical aid and others were adopted where possible. Mother Teresa’s compassion for the suffering was even more evident when she created a leprosy fund and a Leprosy day to help educate the public about leprosy with a lot of people in India's slums infected by the disease. Several clinics were opened in subsequent years creating the Shanti Nagar, the place of peace. By the time of her death due to heart failure in September 1997, she left over 600 center of charity in 123 countries. Mother Teresa’s journey which began as a calling to do the divine work is an example of how religion can have such an impact in a person’s life. The loss of her father kept the family together and even strengthened their work in God (Callopy, Michael & Teresa, 257). As a young girl being raised by a single mother, may have triggered spontaneous experiences and coming to the realization that there are several people who are suffering and who are poor just like her family who had to sell textiles to survive. This consequently resulted in strengthening in prayer and meditation and participation in worship-major triggers for spontaneous mystical experience and the feeling of wanting to serve God as a nun. To best describe and summarize her life, love was perhaps the word that fit the kind of work that she did. Through her devotion she sought to be the extension of God’s heart and hands in the world today. Through her deeds, she was called to be the missionary of charity, a carrier of God’s love to each person that she met especially those that required help. Mother Teresa became absorbed in the divine and she became so in love with the manifestation of the divine and she attained the important feeling of oneness and interconnectedness. She could see no boundaries that marked the poor or the rich; sick or the dying-all she knew was that they needed help. This illustrates that a person may experience feelings as though he/she has been touched by some higher or greater truth or power. However mystical experience is so powerful and has the capacity to provide moral, ethical, intellectual and emotional direction the reason why it can sometimes be mistrusted. Those who experience these events are often persecuted. Mother Teresa was often criticized for her work because some critics thought she exaggerated on some of her works even others feeling she used her position to spread her religious believes (Douglas, Windsor, and Jeffrey G., 203). The ethical dimension of Christianity concerns what is considered good or bad and how a person should live in the context of religion. Mother Teresa’s life exemplifies how to love other people regardless of their religion, social economic status and their background. What matters is they need help and compassion. During her long life service to the poor, mother Teresa became an icon for compassion to peoples indiscriminately from all religions. She made extraordinary contributions to the sick, the dying, and thousands of people that nobody cared to look after. She regarded all of these people as God’s children and she loved them equally as brothers and sisters within a family. It is evident that Martha Teresa’s life has done a lot to inspire a lot of people for not how famous she was, but for her humility, simplicity and compassion. In spite of her fame and popularity, she embraced all even the poorest. Her lifestyle is a challenge to modern humanity, which is faced by numerous problems and requires people with character, passion, kindness and above all love like Mother Teresa. The religious dimension is a source of progress for civilization too. She is a symbol of women’s contribution to the society beyond the church: selfless love, intrinsic tenderness, amid hope amid darkness and wreckage. It helps people develop in brotherhood. References Callopy, Michael & Teresa 1996. Works of love are works of peace: Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the Missionaries of Charity: a photographic record. Ignatius Press, 1996. Print. Douglas, Windsor, & Jeffrey 2004. Media, Ethnicity and Patriotism: The Balkans ‘Unholy War’ for the Appropriation of Mother Teresa. The Balkans online, Vol 6, issue 3. Rai, Raghu, and Navin Chawla. Faith and Compassion: The Life and Work of Mother Teresa. Rockport, MA: Element, 1996. Print. Read More