"Never look back," Gonxha Bojaxhiu's mother tells her in their last goodbye

RATHFARNHAM, Dublin, October 1928 AD — Gonxha Bojaxhiu, an eighteen-year-old from Skopje who became St. Teresa of Calcutta, was received this month at Rathfarnham Abbey, outside Dublin, as a postulant of the Sisters of Loreto. A postulant is a candidate taking the first step toward joining the order. She did not come to stay in Ireland. She came so that the sisters would send her on to India, and to get here she left her widowed mother behind in Skopje.

She went by way of Ireland because the Irish Loreto sisters were already working in India. They first sailed there in 1841 AD, after the Archbishop of Calcutta (now Kolkata) asked them to come. Rathfarnham Abbey is the main house of the Irish Loreto sisters, and the place where they train their new members.

Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje on August 26, 1910 AD, to Albanian parents, Nikola and Drana Bojaxhiu. She was the youngest of their five children, and two of the five died as babies. Her father was a merchant in the city. He died suddenly in 1918 AD, when Gonxha was about eight, and his death ended the family’s prosperity and left them short of money.

From then on her mother, Drana Bojaxhiu, provided for the three children by herself. She raised them firmly and lovingly. A woman of fervent faith, she gave them a solid grounding in the Catholic faith. From her parents Gonxha learned to love the people in greatest need and to help them.

Her faith was also formed in the Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in Skopje. She was a clever, gifted and sociable girl, and she took part in everything the parish ran, above all the Sodality of Mary, the choir and the mission group. She was twelve when she first felt called to the religious life. In the quiet of a church in Skopje she heard Jesus calling her to follow him as a sister in the missions. Her spiritual director, the Jesuit Father Franjo Jambreković, guided her choice of the Loreto sisters.

In September she left home. She had just finished her fifth year of secondary school. Gonxha said she was going “to become a missionary and spend myself for Jesus, who died for all.” Drana Bojaxhiu was heartbroken to see her go. Even so, at the parting Drana Bojaxhiu told her daughter: “Put your hand in His, walk alone with Him, and never look back. Go straight ahead, because if you look back you will go home again.”

Gonxha reached Rathfarnham Abbey at the beginning of October. In Ireland she was given the religious name Sister Mary Teresa, after St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whom she chose as her patron.

Her time in Ireland was short. On December 1 she left for India with two companions. What Drana Bojaxhiu said when Gonxha left Skopje was the last thing she ever said to her daughter. The two never saw each other again.