Mother Teresa: a biography

AN APPEAL FROM ROME
In 1968, Mother Teresa received another invitation, this time to work
among the poor in Rome. The invitation came as a bit of a surprise. Rome
already had more than 22,000 nuns belonging to 1,200 separate religious
orders. Why, Mother Teresa thought, would the Church need yet another
group to work with the poor? But this invitation was different; it came
from none other than Paul VI himself.
Three years earlier, in July 1965, Mother Teresa was among a group of
40 persons granted an audience with the pope. Although Mother Teresa
was overwhelmed at meeting the pope, as were the six other Missionaries
of Charity who accompanied her, it appears Paul VI was taken with her.
Asking for her prayers, he told Mother Teresa to write to him. Now, the
pope was asking her directly for her help in working with Rome’s poor.
That August, Mother Teresa and a handful of her nuns arrived in Rome
to begin work. The area in which they were to work, known as the 
bor-
gate,
is located on the outskirts of Rome. Here live the city’s poorest resi-
dents, many of whom could not even begin to pay the city’s high rents.
The area was home to thousands of immigrants from Sicily and Sardinia.
T H E G R OW T H O F A M I R A C L E
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Rome’s slums were also known for their distinctive architecture. Shelters
known as 
barraca,
a kind of barracks-like structure, sprawled for acres in
the city’s slums. The homes were also distinguished by their bright orange
terra-cotta roofs, which were secured by heavy stones. Many of these
homes lacked electricity, water, and sewage, though some enterprising
souls were able to tap into the city’s electrical power source to light their
homes. Some families also planted small gardens near their homes, which,
in addition to supplementing their diets, alleviated the barren and harsh
landscape of poverty with a wondrous riot of color.
Initial attempts to find a house for the order were futile; there appeared
to be nothing for them. Finally, Mother Teresa found a 
barracche.
It was by
far the poorest and shabbiest residence that the sisters had resided in,
something that appealed to Mother Teresa a great deal. With the excep-
tion of the house being wired for electricity, the residence was from all ap-
pearances no different from the others. There was no plumbing; the nuns
would have to make do with the nearby fountain from which residents
drew their water. In time, the Missionaries of Charity instituted many of
the same programs for the poor of Rome that they provided elsewhere.