St Teresa of Calcutta

Born in Skopje in 1910, she joined the Sisters of Loreto at eighteen and came to India, teaching at their school in Entally, Calcutta, and later serving as headmistress. She became an Indian citizen in 1948.

In 1946, on a train to Darjeeling, she experienced what she later described as a call within a call, to leave the convent and serve the poorest in the streets. It took two years to obtain permission. She took basic medical training, exchanged the Loreto habit for a white sari with a blue border, and began working in the slums.

The Missionaries of Charity were established in 1950. The work grew to homes for the dying, leprosy clinics, orphanages and shelters, and spread far beyond India.

She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and refused the ceremonial banquet, asking that its cost be given to the poor of Calcutta instead. After her death, her private writings revealed decades of interior darkness, which she had disclosed to almost no one while continuing the work.

She died in Kolkata in 1997 and was canonised by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016.