It had been rumored for months that Mother Teresa’s canonization would take place in September. Now the Vatican made the date official and announced that she will be canonised on 4 September 2106, particularly fitting as this year also marks a special jubilee for workers and volunteers of mercy.
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. At the age of 17 she joined the Sisters of Loretto and was later sent to Calcutta. While in India, she contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Darjeeling to recuperate.
On the way there, she felt what she describes as “an order” from God to leave the convent and go to live among the poor. After she left her convent, Mother Teresa began working in the slums, teaching poor children and treating the sick in their homes. A year later she was joined by some of her former students; joined her, and together they took in and helped look after people of all ages, including children, who were dying in the streets.
In 1950, Mother Theresa founded the Missionaries of Charity as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta. Two years later the government granted the congregation a house from which to continue their mission of serving Calcutta’s poor and forgotten.
Mother Theresa died on 5 Sep 1997 and was beatified just six years later by St. John Paul II on 19 Oct. 2003.
