In the afternoon of August 16th 1948, Sister Teresa came to Calcutta with nothing more than a small suitcase, five rupees and her confidence in the call of God. She was thirty eight, frail in health, small in stature, but entering a future with the single weapon of her immense faith and the certainty of the call of God and His abiding presence in her life.

Sister Teresa’s first hours in the city were desperate. Within a short period of time, she had given four of her five rupees to a poor man, and the last to a priest who approached her with a money box. With nothing left but her small suitcase and a few personal belongings, her faith did not falter, but her strength did, and she was tempted to return to the comparative comfort of her former convent. She overcame her feelings by reflecting on how the loneliness and the lack of basis necessities must weigh on the poor. She garnered strength from an inner conviction that confirmed her decision… “My God I feel so weak, I feel I lack everything. Come to my aid. You! Only You Lord.”

She would set our each morning, with a sandwich in her pocket, to work in the slums among the abandoned. The sandwich usually became someone else’s lunch, which usually left the tireless nun fasting until she returned to the Asylum for the elderly in the evening. Her streetcar money usually disappeared in the same way; someone needed money for food or clothing or medicine. I was not unusual for her to walk home on an empty stomach. Her mission had begun.

World Recognition.
In 1979, thirty one years after following the call of God to launch out with five rupees, a small suitcase of personal belongings, the work of Mother Teresa of Calcutta was internationally recognized. She became the recipient of both the official Nobel Prize for Peace and Popular Prize for Peace. Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta with a cheque for approximately $400,000. The poor cared for by the Missionaries of Charity became the beneficiaries. As Mother Teresa noted, “For the poor God performs a miracle every day.” There are abundant examples of these many miracles.

God Provides.
Many people believe that the global reality Mother Teresa called Providence acts by secondary causes. In other words God usually uses people. For example, instead of miraculously filling the Little Sisters of the Poor's pantry, clothing racks, or medicine chests during the night. God softly awakens a human heart in people of generous means around the world, often when those people have more than enough. when least expected a truck driver will arrive at a soup kitchen, and say, "Let's see Mother, I've been given this load paid in full, to be delivered to this address. Where do you want me to put it."

One of the most unforgettable stories Mother Teresa ever told was about a woman who, like many in Calcutta, had been born and raised in the streets without ever knowing the protection and warmth of a home. She found her dying on the streets. Her body covered with worms and a gangrenous leg had been half gnawed away by rats. Mother Teresa picked her up, carried her to the shelter, bathed her in warm water and placed her in a bed. The dying woman struggled to express what she was feeling. Finally she managed a few whispered final words. "I have lived like an animal in the streets. This is the first time my body has rested between two sheets. Finally I'm going to die like a human being, and in a few hours I'll be surrounded by love and care for ever." Mother Teresa ended the story by saying, "A most beautiful smile formed on her lips. Perhaps never in my life have I seen a smile so serene as that."

Malcolm Muggeridge.
In 1969, Malcolm Muggeridge the renowned British journalist and broadcaster interviewed Mother Teresa for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and made a significant contribution to her growing international reputation. This led to him to produce the first biography of Mother Teresa in 1971 entitled, “Something Beautiful for God.”

In these days Muggeridge possessed a scepticism common to intellectuals who are experienced in the ways of the world. Although he was officially an adherent to the Anglican Church, he was neither a believer nor an atheist, rather he considered himself something more rational; an agnostic open to admiring authentic witness. Mother Teresa continued to pray for him that he may come to faith.

On November 27^th 1982, twenty three years on from his first encounter with Mother Teresa, he and his wife took the definitive steps and became Catholics. He was seventy seven years old. Man of communication that he was, he agreed to write a book about the change affected in his life. Titled “Conversion, a Spiritual Journey.” In this book he admitted that his entrance into the Church did not procure for him….

“so much jubilation as a profound peace, a sense of returning home, the tying up of the threads of a lost life, a responding to a bell that had been sounding for a long time, of occupying a seas long vacant at the table.”

Malcolm Muggeridge died 10 year later at the age of eighty seven.

At her death, one of the many descriptions of Mother Teresa proclaimed her  “As one of the most powerful women on earth!”
She was that and more, simply because what she achieved in her remarkable live was accomplished only by her faith, her love for the poor and her total and complete surrender to the will of God.