St. Teresa of Calcutta

Feast Day - September 5
Patron of the Poor in the World and the Poor in Spirit

St. Teresa of Calcutta showed us charity in action.  When we interact with prodigal Catholics, let us always treat them with love, compassion and respect, remembering that we should look at them we are seeing the face of Jesus.

Who was Bl Mother Teresa of Calcutta?

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who spent her life working with the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. She founded the Missionaries of Charity.  Teresa was born in Macedonia, joined the Loreto Sisters of Dublin when she was 18, and was sent to their convent in Darjeeling, India.  In 1956, on a train, she heard what she called “a call within a call.” She knew she was to leave her home in the convent and live in the slums, among the poor, and help them.   She began a new religious community, trained to be a nurse, and opened a school for poor children in Calcutta.  Her love knew no bounds. She traveled around the world pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997.

Prayer of St. Teresa of Calcutta

Dear Jesus, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. 

Comment by St. John Paul II

At the beatification Mass, St. John Paul II called Mother Teresa “an icon of the Good Samaritan.” Her life, he said, was “a bold proclamation of the gospel.”