Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Virgin

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born in 1910 in Skopje to an Albanian family. At eighteen she joined the Loreto Sisters, went to India in 1929 and for years taught at their school in Calcutta. On 10 September 1946, on a train to Darjeeling, she felt called to serve the poorest of the poor. In 1948 she left the convent, put on a white sari with a blue border and began among the slums; in 1950 the Missionaries of Charity were founded, and in 1952 she opened Nirmal Hriday, a home for the dying in Kalighat. The order spread across the world. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Letters published after her death revealed long years of inner darkness. She died in Calcutta on 5 September 1997 and was canonized in 2016.