MOTHER TERESA (The Pencil in God’s Hand) (Part 1)

Beginnings

At age eighteen, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu told her mother she intended to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto to serve as a missionary in India. Initially, her mother refused, but when it became clear that Agnes would not relent, her mother withdrew to her bedroom. Twenty-four hours later, she returned and gave her blessing:
“Put your hand in His—in His hand—and walk all the way with Him.”

On December 1, 1928, Agnes set sail for India under her new name: Sister Mary Teresa. She never saw her mother again.

Little is known about Mother Teresa’s early years in Albania, as she rarely spoke about them. Her childhood coincided with political turbulence, as Albania struggled for independence from Serbia. Her father, a successful merchant and Albanian nationalist, died suddenly under suspicious circumstances while returning from a political convention. Agnes was only eight years old.

Mother Teresa later said:
“Home is where the mother is.”
Her mother often opened their home to people in need. When her brother asked about the strangers at their table, her mother replied:
“Some of them are our relations, but all of them are our people.”

Patience and Persistence

In her early years as a nun, Sister Teresa served in the Calcutta convent as a geography teacher before becoming headmistress in 1937. She spent nineteen years as a Loreto nun, rarely venturing outside the convent walls except for an annual retreat to Darjeeling.

On September 10, 1946, while traveling four hundred miles from Calcutta to the foothills of the Himalayas, thirty-six-year-old Sister Teresa experienced what she called “the call within a call.”

Seated on the train, she had a clear mystical encounter with Jesus:
“It was in that train, I heard the call to give up all and follow Him into the slums—to serve Him in the poorest of the poor. I knew it was His will and that I had to follow Him. There was no doubt that it was going to be His work.”

To be continued…

Tale Tuesday 133

Date: 10th June, 2025
Title: : MOTHER TERESA (The Pencil in God’s Hand) (Part 1)
Source: 50 Women Every Christian Should Know – Learning from Heroines of the Faith
Author: Michelle Derusha