Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was born in the centre of Skopje, on the spot where the entrance to the Trgovski Centar shopping centre now stands, at what was then 14 Pop Kočina Street, in the so-called Latin quarter on the right bank of the river Vardar. The young Agnes Gonxhe, who left her native Skopje full of enthusiasm for an India she did not know, gave her whole life to the love of others.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the Catholic church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Skopje was in the care of the Jesuits. Fr Franjo Jambreković often read the faithful letters from missionary sisters in India and Africa, describing the life of the missions to them vividly. In this way he played a great part in little Gonxha’s decision to leave for India and to give her life to God. At the age of twelve, having received God’s call, she made her final decision to leave Skopje. Six years later, at the age of eighteen, she left the city of her birth.
Kind, humane and full of energy, often called an apostle of love, devoted to the poorest and most squalid parts of Calcutta, this remarkable woman of Skopje became a beloved and honoured citizen of the world; and she never, absolutely never, wished to speak of her past or of her family, always saying: “My work — that is who I am. That is what matters!”
Saint Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and she died on 5 September 1997 at the age of 87. She bore the title Blessed Mother Teresa until she was declared a saint, when Pope John Paul II canonised her on 4 September 2016 in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican.