Mother Teresa took her initial religious vows on this day and chose to be named after Thérèse de Lisieux, who was the patron saint of missionaries.

She had been born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Uskup in the Ottoman Empire, now Skopje in North Macedonia. She had come to India in 1929. She had taught at Loreto Convent in Entally for almost 20 years and was appointed its headmistress in 1944. She had witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943.

When going to Dar-jeeling by train in 1946, she felt she heard an inner call to work for the poor of India for Jesus. In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, after receiving permission from the Holy See to start her own order. She is remembered for her charity work. She received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979 and was canonised after her death.

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