Mother Teresa

The Bible mentioned eight times we should love and treat our neighbors better than how we treat ourselves ("Love Your Neighbor as Yourself"). Mother Teresa demonstrated this biblical verse perfectly through her selfless actions in the slums of India, helping her deprived neighbors she didn't even know. She was born in Macedonia in 1946, originally named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu by her Albanian parents. Her name later changed when she gave up her life to serve God at 18 in Ireland with a Christian nun community called Sisters of Loreto. Mother Teresa became a teacher at Calcutta India where she noticed poverty all around her: "Teresa received what she described as a call from God, to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor." (Graf). She helped those that received none throughout their lives with love and compassion. Mother Teresa showed through her actions that she believed we could change this world for the better through kindness and selflessness. Heroes are role models and are relied on, people who never give up, doing what they do in the name of righteousness. Mother Teresa is a hero in my eyes for the way she used selfless actions, kindness, and unfaltering believe in her faith to make the world a better place.

Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa sacrificed her life along with everything she owned to help strangers around her, all in the name of God. Through pure righteousness and compassion did she help those who were unwanted and unloved, taking great risks for others. One example is when she experienced excruciating visions and feelings that brought her on the brink of doubting God, and yet she found strength and motivation when thinking about people she would help through her pain: "Mother Teresa concluded that these painful experiences could help her identify not only with the abandonment that Jesus Christ felt during the crucifixion, but also with the abandonment that the poor faced daily. In this way she hoped to enter, in her words, the 'dark holes' of the lives of the people with whom she worked" (Martin). Mother Teresa gave an ultimate sacrifice to those she helped when she embraced these insane thoughts as she tried to experience what “the unloved” felt daily, similarly to the way Jesus suffered and ultimately died for others. By taking on the form of the people she worked for, she believed she would experience, "the abandonment that the poor faced daily," and would help her understand how Jesus and the people she worked for felt every day. Just being with suffering victims of diseases with which she worked with was a life-threatening risk, but Mother Teresa did it unquestionably for the selflessness in her heart. She gave a great sacrifice for her religion, and yet the darkness she felt for years made even her question the reality of her faith: "Few of us, even the most devout believers, are willing to leave everything behind to serve the poor. Consequently, Mother Teresa's work can seem far removed from our daily lives...'If I ever become a saint,' she wrote,'I will surely be one of darkness'"(Martin). Few dedicated themselves to their religion enough as to be, "willing to leave everything behind to serve the poor," like Mother Teresa, and ironically, few believers doubt their own faith such as she did. This leads many to question the depth of this anguish Mother Teresa experienced, and why she endured it for so long; All of this answered by the enormous sacrifices she was willing to make to help others. While she had some doubts and the strength of her faith wavered sometimes, she still showed belief in her religion unheard of before, being able to endure ever deepening darkness in her faith and living a selfless life dedicated to helping the poor.

Mother Teresa caring for children in India

Mother Teresa followed these words in everything she did: Be kind towards others and accept that we, as a human race, cannot achieve greatness or even survive without love towards one another. She was a humble teacher at a school that took selfless action towards helping the victims of poverty around her, all the while inspiring others to follow in her footsteps: "Daily, Mother Teresa visited families living in slums, nursing those weak with hunger and dying of tuberculosis. She started an outdoor school for destitute children, and focused on returning dignity to the poor, despite all the indignities they suffered...she soon expanded her work for 'The unwanted, the unloved and the uncared for'" (Anderson). This later lead to a formation of a foundation known as Missionaries of Charity: "Along with the Co-Workers, the lay Missionaries of Charity try to follow Mother Teresa's spirit and charisma in their families"("Mother Teresa-Biography."). Mother Teresa believed we should all be taking small steps with sincere motives towards helping other people and making our communities better places. She achieved enormous success by doing this, even getting as far as forming a foundation based on her beliefs of true spirits and selflessness. Mother Teresa strongly believed that we can all work together with love and caring, and only through this will we be able to accomplish something beautiful: "Mother Teresa's life serves as a lesson in how one can accomplish great things by working diligently and selflessly on small things daily. 'As I often say to people who tell me that they would like to serve the poor as I do,' Mother Teresa said, 'What I can do, you cannot. What you can do, I cannot. But together we can do something beautiful for God'" (Anderson). Mother Teresa showed us that by respecting and helping those around you, you would be making a bettered community. She truly opened a door for this world in the way of introducing individualism and team effort, or contributing ideas to make a better whole product. Mother Teresa believed we should all have '"kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting,'" and indeed it is true wisdom; if we cannot love the people around us, how can we hope to accomplish anything greater than ourselves? Only through kindness and gentleness towards others will we be able to accomplish total unity, as a human race. I do not believe Mother Teresa is a hero for the things she accomplished, not for awards she received. But how she did all these things: Through love, with sincere motives and strong faith. The impact she had was only a result of her ability to keep believing in dark times, and a resilience that came from what Mother Teresa thought to be the greatest power of all: Love.

Mother Teresa shares her warm smile with others

Mother Teresa is a hero because of her contribution to mankind, not as a tangible thing, but as an idea, that loving and showing benevolence to those around you will make the world a better place. Mother Teresa once said, "'When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed'" (Anderson). For her life, her main goal had been to help cease the suffering around her. Mother Teresa is inspiring because of her selflessness and righteous motives. When helping people in the slums of India, she lived to help people she described as “'the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone'" (Graf). Mother Teresa is a true hero and saint because of the way she accomplished all she did. Through kindness, compassion, and love. An Indian spiritual leader once said these great words of wisdom: "Selfless service alone gives the needed strength and courage to awaken the sleeping humanity in one's heart" ("Selfless quotes").