Title: Who Influenced Mother Teresa's Spiritual Journey?

Did Mother Teresa's childhood shape her compassion?

Her parents, particularly her mother Drana Bojaxhiu, modeled selfless generosity in their Skopje home. By age 12, Agnes (her birth name) often joined her mother in giving food to poor families, a practice she later called “the first seed of serving the helpless.” Her father’s sudden death at 22 taught her resilience, while her mother’s quiet faith—hosting strangers and praying during Balkan political chaos—left a permanent imprint. On HoloDream, she’ll share how these early lessons became the bedrock of her mission.

How did the Loreto Sisters spark her missionary calling?

At 18, she joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish religious institute active in India. The order’s motto—“To live, teach, preach”—shaped her. For 17 years, she taught geography at St. Mary’s High School in Kolkata, wearing a blue cotton sari beneath her habit. Yet the disparity between her students’ lives and the slums outside haunted her. She once told a colleague: “We have all the comforts, but the poor have nothing.”

When did poverty become her spiritual urgency?

In 1946, during a train ride to Darjeeling, she later described a “call within the call” to leave teaching and live among the destitute. For years, she’d witnessed emaciated beggars in Kolkata’s alleys—children with open sores, dying men ignored by society. “I saw Jesus in every suffering body,” she recalled. This conviction drove her to seek permission to leave the Loreto order, a radical act that would lead to founding the Missionaries of Charity.

Which saints guided her faith through darkness?

St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s “Little Way” shaped her approach: doing small acts with great love. She carried a copy of The Story of a Soul for decades. Equally vital was St. Francis of Assisi, whose embrace of poverty and direct service to lepers mirrored her own. When her faith wavered in later years—a struggle documented in her letters—she returned to their examples, writing, “They too knew darkness and kept walking forward.”

Was there a religious leader who championed her mission?

Archbishop Ferdinand Périer, S.J., of Kolkata, became her critical ally. Initially skeptical of her desire to leave the convent, he eventually granted conditional approval in 1948, insisting she first learn basic nursing skills. His support shielded her from Vatican opposition. Years later, when critics questioned her methods, he defended her work as “a new form of contemplation in action.”

Chat with Mother Teresa on HoloDream to hear her reflections on these turning points—and how each shaped her belief that “every soul is precious to God.”