Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Although Mother Teresa will not become a Saint until later this year, I felt it was necessary to include her in one of my blog posts because of the important life lessons we can take from her story.Mother Teresa was born on August 26th 1910 in Macedonia. She was deeply involved in her parish as a child and teenager. At 18, she left home to join the Irish Sisters of Loreto. In the late 1930's, she was sent to Calcutta, India to teach at St. Mary's high school. On September 10th 1946, Mother Teresa received a "call within a call" from God to leave the Sisters of Loreto and establish the Missionaries of Charity to serve the "poorest of the poor". The Missionaries of Charity was officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta on October 7th 1950. Soon after, Mother Teresa began to expand her organization throughout India. By 1979, there were 158 foundations worldwide. That same year, Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize. Between 1980-1990, she traveled across the world to serve the poor and disaster-stricken. She founded new communities in Iraq, Cuba, Albania and South-Africa.  After many years of heart, lung and kidney problems, Mother Teresa died on September 5th 1997. At the time of her death, the Missionaries of Charity had almost 4000 members, with 600 foundations in 123 countries worldwide.Mother Teresa was beatified on October 19th 2003 by Pope John Paul II. She will be canonized sometime this year by Pope Francis where she will be recognized as the patron saint of World Youth Day and the Missionaries of Charity.
Here is the trailer for the 2015 movie "The Letters" which is based on the life of Mother Teresa.

                      

Mother Teresa's story is relevant today because she demonstrated incredible compassion, love and service to those in need. She spent her life in service to the poor, sick and dying. She put the needs of others before her own. Today, so many people do not stop to think about people in need. They are too busy with their own great lives that they do not even think about the much harder lives of others. Thinking about how difficult their lives are is not enough, we must act upon this like Mother Teresa. We are not required to give up our lives to help others like her, but we can do smaller acts that can make a huge difference. Donating to charities is an obvious, easy thing that we can all do, but what about going a step further and volunteering our time to help others? We can help out at local soup kitchens or homeless shelters. We can start can or clothing drives in our own communities. We can visit the elderly in nursing homes and the sick in hospitals. Doing these charitable acts are only great for us to do if we are doing them for the right reasons. If our motivations are our own self-gratification, then what is the point? We should not be helping others because we will be rewarded or because it makes us feel good, we should be helping them because it is the right thing to do. Every human being has immeasurable value and dignity and deserves respect. We must follow the golden rule of treating others how we would like to be treated. If everyone thought this way and acted upon it, wouldn't the world be a much better place to live in?      

Resources:
http://www.catholic.org/clife/teresa/
http://www.biography.com/people/mother-teresa-9504160