An education in charity

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was one of the most famous, admired and loved Christians of the 20th century, depite the fact that she devoted her life to living among the poorest, most despised and forgotten people of India.

She was a reminder perhaps of what Jesus said: "Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all."

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Bojaxhieu, in the town of Skopje in Yugoslavia, in 1910, into a devout and charitable Catholic family. Her father, a businessman and town councillor, died - poisoned, allegedly - when she was 8, and because of his business partner's embezzlement the family was suddenly left in acute poverty.

Even in these conditions, she remembered her mother giving half their family meal to beggars who came to the gate, explaining to her three children, "They are our brothers and sisters. They are God's children."

At her Jesuit school, the priests often read letters and reports from missionaries in Calcutta, and this is what inspired her, from the age of 12, to want to go there. For years she thought and prayed about it, and eventually at the age of she felt Mary telling her to dedicate herself to Jesus as a nun and go to serve to poor in Bengal.

Her mother, when Agnes told her, shut herself in her room for 24 hours. When she finally emerged they embraced in tears, and she said: "My child, offer your hands into the hands of Our Lord Jesus. Live only for God. Our Holy Mother will help you accomplish what he wants."

Next: Seeing Jesus begging