Cold Open

It’s August 14th, 1982, in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, seven years into a civil war in the country.

Dust whips across a deserted street while a team of International Red Cross workers hurries through the ruins of the city. Leading the way is a 71-year-old Catholic nun, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Her white sari is famous around the world. But right now it’s making the Red Cross workers nervous. Catching the morning sun, the bright sari could make her an easy target for snipers.

For the last two months, Beirut has been besieged by Israeli forces intervening in the Lebanese Civil War. And the city’s inhabitants have paid a heavy price. Hundreds have been killed and wounded. Water and food supplies are now running low, and disease is spreading rapidly. The humanitarian crisis has become so bad that Mother Teresa felt compelled to leave her work with the poor in India and travel to Lebanon to help. The Red Cross team arrives at a half-destroyed hospital. Its upper windows are blown out. Its walls are pocked with bullet holes. It looks deserted, but its front doors are locked, and they can hear noises from inside.

So the Red Cross team forces its way in. The scene on the other side stops the workers short, though. In the hospital’s wrecked foyer, dozens of children sit huddled together, their eyes wide with fear.

At once, Mother Teresa gets to work. She moves from child to child, checking their injuries, offering what comfort she can. She gives each child a smile and a hug. She hands out food. And through interpreters, she assures each of them that they are going to be okay.

Over the next few hours, Mother Teresa’s team will evacuate all the children they find alive in the shell-damaged hospital. Scenes like this one have come to define Mother Teresa, a nun who has spent decades caring for those in need. Her lifetime of service and sacrifice inspires people all around the world. And it began when she first arrived in India as a young woman on January 6th, 1929.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is January 6th, 1929: Mother Teresa Arrives in India.

Act One: God’s First Call

It’s January 6th, 1929, in Calcutta, in northeast India, 53 years before Mother Teresa’s humanitarian mission in the Lebanese Civil War.

19-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu grips the rope-lined gangplank as she steps off a ship. The port is loud and chaotic, a jarring contrast to the quiet cabin she occupied for weeks at sea. A cart barrels past, narrowly missing her toes. The driver shouts something in a language Agnes doesn’t understand, then disappears into the seething crowd, Agnes' heart racing with equal parts excitement and fear. This bustling country will be her new home.

Agnes was born in Skopje, part of Ottoman-ruled Macedonia. But her childhood was marked by upheaval. World War I broke out when she was four years old, and her homeland was ravaged by the fighting. When she was eight, her father died, allegedly poisoned by political rivals. And soon after, his business was seized, plunging the family into poverty.

In the face of all this misfortune, the young Agnes turned toward religion. And by the age of 12, Agnes had decided to commit herself to life as a nun. Her determination was strengthened just before her 18th birthday, when she traveled to Kosovo to pray at the shrine of the Black Madonna. There, Agnes felt God’s guiding presence, and as soon as she returned home, she applied to join a religious community called "the Sisters of Loreto".

Soon after, Agnes was sent to the order’s convent in Ireland. There in quiet seclusion, she studied scripture and began learning English, the language used by the sisters there. But Agnes didn’t feel called to the isolated life of an enclosed, rural convent. She wanted to work directly with those in need. So she asked to be sent to the developing world to complete the next stage of her training, and her superiors agreed. In late 1928, Agnes boarded a ship bound for India.

After arriving in Calcutta, Agnes devotes herself to her new vocation. She begins learning Bengali and works as a teacher at a convent school in Darjeeling, in the lower Himalayas. Two years later, she takes her religious vows and adopts a new name: Teresa, after Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries. Five years after that, she completes her training at the Loreto Convent in Calcutta. And following the custom of her order, it’s at this point that she takes the title “Mother.” The 26-year-old Agnes Bojaxhiu is now Mother Teresa.

But India in the 1930s is a country on edge. Demands for independence from Britain are growing, but the independence movement is itself deeply divided. Hindu and Muslim leaders have conflicting visions of the future. The All-India Muslim League wants a separate Islamic homeland. But Hindu leaders oppose the idea of partition. And nowhere are the tensions higher than in Calcutta, where large Hindu and Muslim communities have lived side-by-side for centuries.

The conflict comes to a head in August 1946. British rule in India is becoming unsustainable, but the future shape of the country is still unknown. Hoping to press their demands for partition, the All-India Muslim League calls for a day of strikes. But this protest quickly spirals into chaos in Calcutta. Hindu activists take to the streets, attacking the strikers. Muslim politicians then encourage their community to fight back. And the city becomes a battleground.

The local authorities are overwhelmed. For three days, Calcutta descends into brutal sectarian violence—and trapped at the center of it all is the convent of the Sisters of Loreto. Their building stands between a Hindu neighborhood and a Muslim one. But Mother Teresa and the other nuns refuse to just watch as the city falls into violence around them. They offer sanctuary to anyone who requests it—whatever their religion.

And when the rioting finally subsides, Mother Teresa doesn’t hesitate. She immediately marches out of the convent to find food for those sheltering inside. But what she sees on the streets is horrifying. Burned-out shops and temples. Homes destroyed. And countless bodies been picked apart by vultures.

But Mother Teresa does not despair. The horrific sights only deepen her sense of purpose. She is more convinced than ever that God has sent her to India for a reason. And soon, she will believe she’s heard another call from heaven—one that will lead her out of the convent and into the work that will make her famous all around the world.

Act Two: Among the Poor

It’s September 10th, 1946, on a train in northeast India, three weeks after the deadly riots in Calcutta.

36-year-old Mother Teresa gazes out the window as lush green fields race by, and the vast Himalayas rise slowly in the distance. She’s been on this train for almost a day, heading to the Sisters of Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual religious retreat. She’s looking forward to the break, a chance to escape Calcutta and reflect on all the horrors she saw during the recent riots.

But as the train sways, her head begins to nod. And she drifts toward sleep—but then suddenly she snaps awake, feeling an overwhelming clarity—she knows what she is to do with the rest of her life. She must leave the safety of her convent, move into Calcutta’s slums, and dedicate herself to serving the poor and the sick. This is God’s will.

Mother Teresa prays for more guidance during the retreat. But her certainty doesn’t waver. She requests approval for her unusual new mission from senior clergy, and eventually, in 1948, she is given permission. To mark this new stage in her religious life, she swaps the black habit of the Sisters of Loreto for a set of white and blue saris. Then she spends months studying basic medicine—learning how to treat disease, malnutrition, and other common illnesses among the poor. Finally, she leaves convent life behind entirely and enters the slums to begin her work.

But establishing her new mission in Calcutta is far harder than she thought it would be. At first, Mother Teresa has no home, few supplies, and no one to fall back on. She must beg for handouts from hospitals and clinics. And she spends hours just walking the streets, searching for a suitable room to rent.

More than once, this difficulty tempts Mother Teresa to return to the comfort of her familiar convent. But whenever she has doubts, she remembers that this is God’s will for her. Eventually, she finds modest rooms and starts to teach the children of nearby families. She holds classes outdoors using donated books and supplies. And as word spreads, the classes grow from five students to 20. Then, a second Sister of Loreto volunteers to leave the convent and join Mother Teresa’s mission on the streets. Her one-woman mission is becoming something more.

Two years later, the Vatican grants permission for Mother Teresa to form her own organization. She names it the Missionaries of Charity. And more nuns joined her, moving into a new building they named the Motherhouse.

Over the next 25 years, this organization continues to expand. It opens more hospices and children’s homes in Calcutta, as well as new convents across Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia. But not every mission is welcomed.

In 1971, Mother Teresa travels to Northern Ireland. She has a bold ambition—to bring peace to a country torn apart by centuries of conflict between Protestants and Catholics, hoping her charitable works can bridge the sectarian divide. But many in Northern Ireland are skeptical. Local Protestant leaders are suspicious. And established charities complain that she’s interfering with their efforts. Still, others question whether Northern Ireland is even suitable for Mother Teresa’s style of ministry. The country isn’t suffering from a humanitarian crisis. The people there don’t live in the extreme poverty Mother Teresa knows from India. Peace in Northern Ireland will only come through negotiation and politics, not through running soup kitchens and orphanages.

So after several of her projects are blocked, Mother Teresa closes the Missionaries of Charity house and departs Northern Ireland after less than two years.

But that initiative is a rare failure. Over the next few years, the Missionaries of Charity open more convents around the world. And with each new facility, Mother Teresa’s fame grows, until, in 1979, her years of charitable work are recognized with one of the greatest accolades of all—the Nobel Peace Prize.

Over the next 18 years, Mother Teresa will continue to expand the Missionaries of Charity. Her sisters will work with those made homeless by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Mother Teresa will personally rescue children from the Lebanese Civil War. And they will help tend to the starving during the Ethiopian famine.

Eventually, though, sickness and old age will come for Mother Teresa. And her lifetime of service will end in 1997. But her legacy and her memory will live on.

Act Three: Sainthood & Legacy

It’s September 4th, 2016, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, 37 years after Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

From the altar, Pope Francis surveys the sea of joyful faces before him. Not a single seat is empty. Because many Catholics have long awaited today’s service, Mother Teresa is about to be canonized as a saint.

Nineteen years ago, Mother Teresa died at the age of 87. Her death made headlines around the world. Religious and secular leaders lined up to offer tributes. The Indian government honored her with a state funeral, and the Pope’s personal representative delivered the homily. Since then, devout Catholics have prayed to Mother Teresa, asking for her help and intercession. And now, the church has decided that enough miracles have been verified that Mother Teresa can officially be recognized as a saint.

When the ceremony ends, thousands of pilgrims linger in St. Peter’s Square to celebrate. True to the spirit of the new Saint Teresa’s work, the Pope provides a pizza lunch for 1,500 homeless people after the Mass. And in her birthplace of Skopje in Macedonia, the local authorities launch a week-long festival in her honor.

Yet amid the celebrations, people debate Mother Teresa’s true legacy. Some criticize her opposition to divorce, contraception, and abortion. Others point to her defense of a priest who was later convicted of child abuse.

But for most people, Mother Teresa is still remembered as a paragon of service and sacrifice. Her schools, homes, and orphanages changed lives all around the world, but it was in India where she made the greatest impact. To this day, her Missionaries of Charity continue her work there, almost a century after Mother Teresa first arrived in India on January 6th, 1929.

Outro

Next on History Daily. January 7th, 1558. After two centuries of English rule, a French army captures the important port city of Calais.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Joe Godley.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.