St. Teresa of Calcutta - Mother Teresa Prayer Card (PC-27) - September 5th

PC-27 — St. Teresa of Calcutta — Mother Teresa Prayer Card

She picked up one person at a time — and changed the world

Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what is now North Macedonia, she felt the call to religious life at seventeen and joined the Sisters of Loreto, choosing the name Teresa after her beloved St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She was sent to India, where she taught for nearly two decades — until September 10, 1946, when on a train ride to Darjeeling she received what she called her "call within a call": a direct invitation from Jesus to leave the convent school and go live among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She obeyed without hesitation.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary works of charity in modern history. St. Teresa of Calcutta founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950, whose mission was to love and care for those no one else was willing to care for — the dying, the lepers, the abandoned, the unloved. She opened homes for the dying so that people who had lived like no one cared could die knowing that someone did. When she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, she refused the ceremonial banquet and asked that the funds be given to the poor. Her acceptance speech was a proclamation of the Gospel: "In the poor it is the hungry Christ that we are feeding. It is the naked Christ that we are clothing. It is the homeless Christ that we are giving shelter."

She was canonized by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016. Her feast day is September 5th — the anniversary of her death — and her counsel remains as urgent as ever: "Do small things with great love."

Perfect for: Charitable ministry workers, healthcare workers, social workers, September 5th feast day, Catholic school classrooms, confirmation gifts, and anyone called to serve the poor.