September 5 | Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Welcome, young history buffs and curious minds, to My Daily Saint, the podcast that digs deep into the incredible lives of the saints, those remarkable people who shaped history and continue to inspire us today. Forget dusty old portraits and boring stories. Today, imagine you are just 8 years old. You live with your family, relying on the stability, safety, and love of your parents. Suddenly, the unthinkable happens. Your father is murdered. Your family is instantly plunged into severe financial hardship. Your entire world is completely flipped upside down.

Despite having very little money left to survive on, your mother's pious example and her fierce dedication to works of charity never falter. She keeps giving to others, even when it's incredibly hard for her own family. This is the true, dramatic beginning of the story of Agnes Gancha Bojakšu, an Albanian girl born on August 26, 1910.

You might not immediately recognize the name Agnes, but this little girl would grow up to become one of the most famous, recognizable, and impactful women of the entire 20th century. She is a woman who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and boldly lead an audience of powerful global leaders in prayer. Today, we are talking about the incredible Saint Teresa of Calcutta, known to millions around the globe simply as Mother Teresa.

From a very young age, Agnes held on to a massive, life-changing dream. She desperately wanted to serve the world as a missionary. At the age of 17, she took a gigantic leap of faith to follow that dream. She left her home and entered the Sisters of Loretto in Ireland, where she took the religious name Sister Teresa. Shortly after, she was sent thousands of miles away to Calcutta, India. To teach high school students. For 17 long years, she lived a relatively stable life doing exactly that, but then her path was violently interrupted.

Sister Teresa contracted tuberculosis, a severe and dangerous lung infection, and she was strictly ordered by her superiors to leave her teaching post and rest in a town called Darjeeling. It was during this journey, rattling along on a train, that everything changed forever. On that train ride, she received what she famously described as her call within a call. God was asking her to do something absolutely radical, to leave the safety and security of her convent and go out into the streets to directly serve the poorest of the poor.

Can you imagine how terrifying that must have been? Leaving everything you know to walk into complete poverty? But she was courageous. The Vatican officially granted her permission to leave her convent and serve the poor under obedience to the Archbishop of Calcutta.

She walked right into the slums. She didn't have massive funding or a giant organization behind her. She just started teaching children in the dirt and tending to the sick who had been abandoned on the streets. Her radical love was completely contagious. Shortly after she began, she was actually joined in her dangerous and difficult ministry by some of her very own former high school students.

By 1950, this brave little group was officially established as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta called the Missionaries of Charity. The group grew with explosive speed. Wearing their iconic blue and white habits, these sisters established homes for orphans, for AIDS patients, and for prostitutes. Mother Teresa became known worldwide for her remarkable, fearless charity toward those suffering in the most deplorable conditions, as well as her fierce defense of the unborn and the spiritually poor.

But here is the most dramatic twist of her story. While she was literally bringing light, love, and physical healing to the darkest corners of the earth, she was battling an intense darkness inside her own mind and soul. Mother Teresa suffered from decades of severe spiritual desolation and darkness. She felt empty and distant from God. Yet, she never once lost her faith. She kept working, she kept praying, and she kept loving. Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997, and was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis in 2016.

Because of her incredible legacy, she is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Calcutta, the missionaries of charity, and is a patron saint of World Youth Day. Mother Teresa once said, This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts.

You don't have to travel to the slums of India to find people who need you. Mother Teresa talked about serving the spiritually poor. In your life today, the spiritually poor are right in the hallways of your school. It's the kid who always sits alone at lunch. It's the student who gets made fun of, or the person on your sports team who feels ignored.

Your mission this week is to step out of your comfortable convent, just like she did. Go sit with that person. Stand up for someone being excluded. Give your time, your kindness, and your popularity until it hurts, just a little bit. That is true love. Thank you for joining us on My Daily Saint. We look forward to sharing another incredible story of faith and courage with you tomorrow.