Mother Teresa: a biography

THE LORETO SISTERS
Recognizing the need for Catholic education in their homeland, Irish
church officials invited the IBVM sisters to establish a school in Dublin.
However, the Institute was not in a position to send Sisters immediately,
but arranged that a young local woman, Frances Ball, would join the or-
ganization and recruit other Irish women. In 1814, Ball traveled to York,
returning to Dublin in 1821. Now known as Mother Teresa, Ball settled at
Rathfarnham House with two companions. Because the three women
lived together in Rathfarnham House, Mother Teresa decided to call their
order “Loreto” after the Italian village to which the home of the Holy
Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) was supposed to have been miraculously
transported. The name stuck, and eventually the order became known as
“Loreto Sisters,” although the official title remains the Institute of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
Early in 1841, a German missionary asked Mother Teresa to send
members of her order to India. By then, generations of Irish, having en-
listed in the British Army, were stationed in India, which was part of the
British Empire. Many had married and started families. If, however, one
or another of the parents died or if they deserted their family, scores of
Irish children were lost to the Catholic Church. Beginning in 1834, the
Jesuits began arriving in Bengal near Calcutta to deal with this problem.
They established St. Xavier’s School in which they taught Catholics,
Hindus, and Muslims alike. It soon became apparent, though, that the
community needed a separate school for the daughters of Irish Catholic
military families.
When first approached about the possibility of sending nuns to India to
staff the girls school, Mother Teresa gently but firmly refused. There were
too many children in Ireland in need of assistance. There was also a short-
age of nuns. Her German visitor countered that in refusing to send mem-
bers of her order to India, Mother Teresa was, in effect, refusing to provide
a Christian education for those children. Mother Teresa relented. The
priest could make his case before the entire community; they would de-
cide whether to accept the mission to India.
In the end, seven sisters decided to go to India, marking the beginning
of Loreto missionary work there. On August 23, 1841, the seven, accom-
panied by two priests and six postulants, or novice nuns, set sail. Almost
four months later, they disembarked in Calcutta. The little band took pos-
session of the house at 5 Middleton Row, where they were to live and
teach. The sisters prepared the once lavishly furnished house into simpler
living quarters and classrooms. The 67-foot dining room became the
school hall.
A N S W E R I N G T H E C A L L
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The sisters then traveled to the local orphanage near the cathedral of
Our Lady of the Rosary to meet with church officials and the children. Fi-
nally, on January 10, 1842, the Loreto School opened its doors to board-
ers and day students. As became the custom with the Loreto Sisters,
students whose families could afford to do so paid tuition. Their monies,
combined with other donations, enabled the sisters to provide a free edu-
cation for children of the poor and to operate an orphanage and a widow’s
asylum.
The initial reports that Mother Teresa received from India were enthu-
siastic. Streams of volunteers now offered to go to India to aid the Loreto
Sisters of Calcutta. Even when a number of the nuns died of cholera, the
flow of volunteers did not stop. It was this pioneering and courageous
group of teachers that Gonxha Bojaxhiu soon hoped to join.