Prayers offered on Mother Teresa’s 26th death anniversary in Kolkata

Dipa Chakraborty

Mother Teresa, a name synonymous with compassion and selfless service, is being remembered and celebrated today on her death anniversary, September 5. Her life was a testament to the power of love and compassion. Her journey from a small town in the Balkans to the heart of India’s slums is a remarkable story of dedication and selflessness. She passed away on September 5, 1997, at the age of 87. She was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis in 2016. Born in a family of ethnic Albanians in Skopje in 1910, Teresa left her home at the age of 18 and later joined the ‘Sisters of Loreto’ located in Ireland’s Rathfarnham. Mother Teresa, whose actual name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, moved to India in the late 1920s and taught history and geography for 15 long years at Calcutta’s St Mary’s High School. In 1948, Teresa decided to leave the church and adopted a lifestyle in slums to aid the poor and the needy in Kolkata. In 1950, she laid the foundation stone of the Roman Catholic religious congregation which is now popularly known as the Missionaries of Charity. Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She urged the jury to contribute the prize money of USD 192,000 for helping the poor people of India. In September 2017, Mother Teresa was declared Patron Saint of the Archdiocese of Calcutta by the Vatican Pope for her selfless service towards helping the underprivileged and poor in Kolkata. Teresa, who died in 1997 at the age of 87, was granted a state funeral by t