Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Something beautiful for God
From an Albanian girl in Skopje to the saint of Calcutta's poor — the life of one who saw Christ in every abandoned face.
14 episodes · Narrated in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French and German
Episode 1 is free
Episodes
- 01
The Train to Darjeeling
A nun on a train hears what she would understand as an order and, for now, keeps it to herself. To get to know her, we must go back to a girl from Skopje.
- 02
Gonxha
A widowed mother, letters from missionaries in India, and a train station where she says goodbye forever.
- 03
Sister Teresa
A novice in the mountains, a teacher on the plain: the happy years of a nun, before everything changed.
- 04
Behind the Wall
War, famine and massacres outside — and, inside, a headmistress with three hundred girls and no rice.
- 05
How a Nun Leaves the Convent
An archbishop who says wait, letters to Ireland and Rome, and a cheap cotton sari.
- 06
Alone in the Street
A school scratched in the dirt, a diary of exhaustion, and the first former pupil who comes to stay.
- 07
The Home of the Pure Heart
An abandoned building beside the temple of Kali, a woman who says thank you as she dies, and babies rescued from garbage cans.
- 08
The Night
For about half a century, she wrote that she could not feel God. Only a few priests read the letters — and she asked that they be destroyed.
- 09
The Ones No One Touches
Former leprosy patients who weave the sisters' saris, a City of Peace, and the first sisters to leave India.
- 10
Something Beautiful for God
A BBC camera, a light that everyone explains in their own way, and a Nobel Peace Prize.
- 11
Among Bombs and the Powerful
She crosses the line of fire in Beirut, opens a home for people with AIDS — and accepts a dictator's medal and a banker's money.
- 12
The Questions
The editor of a medical journal, an atheist journalist, a doctor from Calcutta, a former sister. And the defenders' reply.
- 13
The Last Night in the Mother House
Hospitals, a prayer requested by an archbishop, a successor — and a gun carriage in the rain.
- 14
Saint of Darkness
A cause opened without the five-year wait, two miracles, one of them disputed, and the letters she asked to have destroyed.
How this series was researched
The narration and the place and date labels were broken down into factual claims and checked against sources: 286 claims in this series were checked against a cited source. Where the sources did not support a claim, the text was corrected or reduced to what the sources actually say.
A second, independent check then went through the whole series again.
The text was reviewed separately in each of the five languages it is narrated in.
Main sources
- Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light — Mother Teresa; ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk (2007)
- Nobel Lecture — Mother Teresa (1979)
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910–1997) — biography — Holy See (2003)
- Homily for the canonization of Mother Teresa — Francis (2016)
- Memories of her years with Loreto 1928–1948 — Loreto Sisters (IBVM) (2016)
- Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography — Kathryn Spink (1997)
Tradition and debate
Where the sources are thin or disagree, the series says so. For example:
- It is said that the children she taught in Calcutta began to call her “Ma”, which means mother.
- It is said that a young priest of the Kali temple, ill with tuberculosis, was taken in by her sisters, and that the protests then died down.
- That she valued the day of her baptism more than her birthday is reported by her fellow sisters.
Read more on the Journal
Mother Teresa's Dark Night of the Soul: What Her Letters Say
For most of her ministry Mother Teresa felt no presence of God. What her private letters, 'Come Be My Light,' reveal about her dark night of the soul.
Mother Teresa's Miracles: The Two That Made Her a Saint
What miracles did Mother Teresa perform? The two the Church approved, Monica Besra in India and Marcilio Andrino in Brazil, and the path to sainthood.
