Blessed Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta

"The fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is service" (Mother Teresa). Throughout her lifetime Mother Teresa spread her love through service. As a young girl, Mother Teresa lived her life as a strict practicing Catholic. At the age of seventeen, Mother Teresa traveled to the Sister of Loretta School where she learned to become a nun. After being vowed a nun, Mother Teresa taught at a school in India. As a teacher, Mother Teresa felt she was not fulfilling God's plans for her. Not fulfilling Gods plan for her was what Mother Teresa termed a call within a call and decided to start her own foundation in India that would primarily serve and give love to the poor. Blessed Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta truly deserves the title of a "Hero" for her work ethic, lifetime of encouraging goodness, as well as selfless actions of serving the poor.

Mother Teresa's outstanding work ethic never seized in order to provide care for the poor. She saw the poor as her equals: "Muggeridge was struck by her pleasant directness and by the otherworldly character of her values. He saw her having her feet completely on the ground, yet she seemed almost unable to comprehend his suggestion (meant as an interviewer's controversial prod) that trying to save a few of India's abandoned children was almost meaningless, in the face of the hordes whom no one was helping. He realized that Mother Teresa had virtually no understanding of a cynical or Godless point of view that could consider any human being less than absolutely valuable" ("Mother Teresa"). Mother Teresa saw every person she met as her equal no matter how poor or rich they were. Mother Teresa viewed everyone as her equal and provided unconditional love for them. She worked hard to care for them during difficult times. Mother Teresa gladly accepted spending her life serving God's people: "Continuing to experience a spiritual darkness, she came to believe that she was sharing in Christ's Passion, particularly the moment in which Christ asks, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Despite this hardship, Mother Teresa integrated the feelings of absence into her daily religious life and remained committed to her faith and her work for Christ" ("Teresa, Blessed Mother"). Despite having personal hardships, Mother Teresa always put others before herself. By doing so, she stayed committed to her work of serving God's peoples. Saint Mother Teresa viewed everyone as her equal and showed her devotion to them through her hard work.

Mother Teresa promoted goodness through founding many charities whose sole purpose is to serve the poor. Saint Teresa cared only to provide love and nurturance for those who needed it most: "On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, "The Missionaries of Charity", whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after" ("Mother Teresa."). Mother Teresa immediately accepted her call from God to care for his children that had no one to care for them. Mother Teresa opened up many missions. These successful foundations of service promoted others to join the missions and serve the poor. Saint Teresa's first mission in Calcutta was a huge success. Her progressing mission created the expansion of many more missions worldwide: "Before long they had a presence in more than 22 Indian cities, and Mother Teresa had visited such other countries as Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Australia, Tanzania, Venezuela, and Italy to begin foundations" ("Mother Teresa"). After founding her first benefiting charity, Mother Teresa spread her life's work to other countries. By doing this, many more of the poor could receive help from her promotion of goodness. Saint Teresa advocated goodness by founding missionaries and foundations that served God and his people.

Through Saint Teresa's selfless actions, she remained fully devoted to providing care for the less fortunate. Saint Teresa always put others who needed her love before her: "Despite failing health, she was constantly in motion. In May 1991 she left the hospital and her heart treatment to go to Bangladesh, where a hurricane had left thirty thousand dead. Then it was on to Baghdad, Iraq, in June 1991 to open a house and feeding center for disabled children. By July 1992 she had opened six houses in Albania. In Cuba she opened two houses in August 1991, another a year later in Haiti, and another that same month in the former Soviet republic of Estonia" (Tilton). This demonstrates how Mother Teresa was selfless because during many people's dying days they rest in the hospital till they pass. Instead Mother Teresa decided to spend her last days on Earth serving as an advocate for the poor, tending the unloved, and most of all putting others needs before hers. Mother Teresa lived a life of poverty because she spent her money on necessities for the poor rather than luxury goods that momentarily fulfilled her: "In 1963 the Indian government awarded Mother Teresa the title Padmashri ("Lord of the Lotus") for her services to the people of India. In 1964, on his trip to India, Pope Paul VI gave her his ceremonial limousine, which she immediately raffled to help finance her leper colony" ("Teresa, Blessed Mother"). When given a luxury good as a reward for her hard work, Mother Teresa selflessly sold it in order to provide money for one of her foundations. This is truly heroic because many would have kept the expensive automobile bestowed upon Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa's selflessness provided the poor with unconditional amounts of love and necessities for their life. Mother Teresa transformed the hearts of many when she healed the less fortunate. While healing the less fortunate, it encouraged others to follow in her footsteps.

           "So the final part of her story will be the lasting impact her memory has on the next generations of missionaries, as well as in the world as a whole" ("Mother Teresa"). Unconditional love given selflessly to others is one of the most important values in life Mother Teresa taught in her missionaries; Saint Mother Teresa practiced this value by touching countless hearts through her services. Therefore, impacting their lives with lessons they shall carry on for the rest of their lives.