September 10

On September 10, 1946, Sister Teresa, a missionary with the Sisters of Loreto, was traveling by train from Calcutta, India, to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat, when she experienced what she later described as "the call within the call." She wrote, "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith." This marked the moment that Sister Teresa became Mother Teresa. Born in Albania, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu left home at age 18 and took her vows at 21. In 1948, she replaced her Loreto habit with a white cotton sari decorated with a blue border and started a new religious community to help the destitute and starving – the "poorest among the poor."