Nobel laureate Mother Teresa is regarded as the epitome of generosity and kindness. Serving the underprivileged was her true calling.
In the cusp of her 111th birth anniversary celebrated on Thursday, let’s remember her once again through all the great teachings she has left behind.
Born on August 26, 1910 to a Kosovar Albanian family in Skopje, Ottoman Empire, she was named Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu where Anjezë is a cognate of “Agnes” and Gonxhe means “rosebud” or “little flower” in Albanian.
Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu left her home for Irelands’ Rathfarnham at the age of 18 to join the ‘Sisters of Loreto’ and to learn English with the intent of becoming a missionary. She came to India in 1929, and after teaching for some time in schools at Darjeeling she took her first religious vows in 1931. It was then, when she was honoured in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, as an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary.
However, serving the underprivileged was her true calling for which she began her journey of serving the poor and the needy in 1948.
Here are some of Mother Teresa’s inspiring quotes to remember her and for us to take a step forward towards a blissful life:
- If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
- Peace begins with a smile.
- There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.
- If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
- Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
- Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
- Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
- Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
- If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.
Like she never held back in spreading happiness, may we inhale some of her good qualities and shine brighter as a better human being and build a better world that she wished for.
Ms Kalinga