Agnes of God

It’s a great time to be born in the 20th century, being able to witness the amazing works of Agnes Bojaxhiu. She is the real superwoman.

Agnes or Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (pronounced bow-jay-joo; sometimes boh-joo) is the real name of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. It’s an Albanian name, her parents being of Albanian-Bulgarian-Serbian descent.

Agnes had mix ethnic roots. She was born in what is today modern Skopje (pronounced sko-pye) in the Republic of Macedonia. Agnes was a citizen of India too, beginning in 1948.

She grew up to become a nun. She took inspiration from her deeply religious family. She began to feel the calling at age 12. It was in a formation house in Dublin, Ireland that she chose the name “Sister Mary Teresa,” as is the practice, after St. Therese of Lisieux. She was 18 years old then.

Her charity missions sent her to India. It was there where she demonstrated her Christ-like love of children and the elderly, the sick, the dying, and the destitute (or the poor). She lived according to what was expected of Christians – to demonstrate unconditional love.

What was remarkable about her was that she touched, cared for, and lived with lepers. Leprosy then was still a highly contagious disease that destroyed the human body’s nerve system. Sister Mary Teresa was not deterred by their foul-smelling wounds, oozing with pus and blood. In those days, lepers were shunned an avoided; they were considered outcasts. But the nun hugged them, and fed them, and prayed for them.

Sister Mary Teresa, later Mother Teresa, also served children with tuberculosis and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). She gave an example of love and compassion that very few people – including those who consider themselves deeply religious – would be willing to follow.

Sadly, the orphanages and schools that the ageing nun ran didn’t go without criticism. Facilities were described to be dirty or in poor condition. Critics also accused Mother Teresa of using poverty to preserve the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and its doctrines on the people.

Yet, she endured. To her, the vow of her vocation was more than purity, poverty and obedience. She kept a fourth vow — “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”

Her works of mercy won for Mother Teresa the Nobel Peace Prize of 1979. She passed away in 1997, at the age of 87.