Mother Teresa: a biography

THE FIRST STEPS
As Mother Teresa recalled “The message was clear, I knew where I be-
longed, but I did not know how to get there.”
1
On her return from Dar-
jeeling, she immediately sought out Father Van Exem, showing him two
sheets of paper on which she had written down her plans. Upon returning
to his room at Baithakana, Father Van Exem placed the pieces of paper
underneath a picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which Mother
Teresa had given to him as a Christmas gift. Two hours later, he returned
and read the papers. He found the key ingredients as to what she was sup-
posed to do: she was to leave Loreto, but she was to keep her vows. She

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was to start a new congregation or order of nuns, who would work for the
poor in the slums. The members of this new congregation would have to
take a special vow of charity for the poor. There were to be no institutions,
hospitals, or clinics to help in this endeavor. Mother Teresa and her nuns
were to work and live among the poorest of the poor. Special attention,
too, was to be focused on those people who had no family or were un-
wanted in any way.
Father Van Exem did not even question Mother Teresa’s explanation.
Years later, he stated that he believed her new vocation was just as true as
her decision to leave Skopje and become a nun. To answer this latest call-
ing, it did not matter to Mother Teresa that she had already made one sac-
rifice in leaving her mother. Now she was fully prepared to make a second:
leaving the safe confines of the convent at Loreto and venturing out into
the streets of Calcutta to work with the poor.
When Mother Teresa returned to Loreto in October, she led a retreat
in which the seeds of her new venture began to sprout. Drawing on the
story of Jesus on the cross crying, “I thirst,” Mother Teresa put forth the
basic tenets that would guide her journey: “to quench the infinite thirst of
Jesus Christ on the Cross for love of souls.”
2
The importance of this idea
was so great that as her organization grew and built chapels, each one
would be inscribed with the two words: “I thirst.” In creating the Mis-
sionaries of Charity, she expected those chosen not only to take vows of
chastity, poverty, and obedience, but to take an additional vow as well: to
offer themselves to the poorest of the poor.
Leaving the convent was not easy for Mother Teresa. It was, she ad-
mitted years later, the most difficult thing she had ever done, even
harder than leaving her family and homeland. Besides the emotional
turmoil, she still needed permission to leave. Upon consulting Father
Van Exem, Mother Teresa decided to pray about her decision for a few
months. In January 1947, Mother Teresa decided to write to Archbishop
Ferdinand Périer about her plans; Father Van Exem would follow up
with a visit.
If Father Van Exem thought that the archbishop would readily agree to
Mother Teresa’s plans, he was mistaken. Years later, Périer described the
first time he learned of Mother Teresa:
One day, as I was making the visit of the Entally convent,
someone told me that a young nun of the Community had
some queer ideas. Now, whenever anyone tried to put me on
my guard in this way, I always asked my self whether the hand
of God might not be there, and gave full freedom to the person
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M O T H E R T E R E S A

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to explain his or her case. If the religious is humble, obedient,
dutiful the impulse may come from God.
3
Despite his open-mindedness, Archbishop Périer was not only against
the idea of a lone nun living among the poor on the Calcutta streets, but
he was also alarmed that one of his priests was apparently treating the
idea with some seriousness. Soon after his meeting with Van Exem, the
Archbishop ordered Mother Teresa transferred to Asansol, a city located
about 175 miles northwest of Calcutta. Here, she was to maintain the
kitchen as well as the garden; she would also continue teaching geogra-
phy. Father Van Exem then cautioned Mother Teresa to say nothing
more of her plans for the time being. The two kept up regular correspon-
dence by mail.