Saint Teresa of Calcutta

On December 24, 2024, Pope Francis ordered the inscription of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Virgin, into the General Roman Calendar.  St. Teresa is celebrated each year as an Optional Memorial on September 5.

The Holy See released the proper liturgical texts in Latin. The English translation of texts for the Roman Missal and Lectionary for Mass was confirmed by the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on June 24, 2025, and the translation of texts involving the Liturgy of the Hours was confirmed on August 4, 2026.

The proper texts in English for the liturgical celebration of St. Teresa of Calcutta are provided below:

Roman Missal

From the Common of Virgins: For One Virgin, or the Common of Holy Men and Women: For Those Who Practiced Works of Mercy.

Collect

O God, who called the Virgin Saint Teresa
to respond to the love of your Son thirsting on the Cross
with outstanding charity to the poorest of the poor,
grant us, we beseech you, by her intercession,
to minister to Christ in our suffering brothers and sisters.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Lectionary for Mass

Aside from the usual Mass readings of the day, any Lectionary readings from the Common of Virgins or Common of Holy Men and Women: For Those Who Work for the Underprivileged may be used for St. Teresa of Calcutta. The following readings are also recommended by the Holy See, and will appear in a future edition of the Lectionary for Mass. (Current citations from the Lectionary's Common of Holy Men and Women are provided for convenience.)

635A – Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Virgin

From the Common of Virgins, or the Common of Holy Men and Women: For Those Who Work for the Underprivileged, or:

First Reading – Isaiah 58:6-11 (no. 737-15)
Share your bread with the hungry.

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11 (no. 739-5)
R/. I will bless the Lord at all times.

Gospel Acclamation – See Matthew 11:25 (no. 741-4)
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.

Gospel – Matthew 25:31-46 (long) or 31-40 (short) (no. 742-13)
Whatever you did for the least of my brothers, you did for me.

Liturgy of the Hours

From the Common of Virgins or the Common of Holy Women: For Those Who Worked for the Underprivileged.

Biography

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born of Albanian parents in Skopje on August 26, 1910. On account of a missionary vocation, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Loreto in 1928 and was then sent to India. On September 10, 1946, she received a “call within a call” to serve the Lord in the poorest of the poor. Accordingly, after two years she began an apostolate to the multitude of the poor and destitute, founding the Congregations of the Missionaries of Charity, for both women and men. Accepting with serenity the pain of interior darkness, she demonstrated in a remarkable way the victory of the light of Christ, until she faithfully entrusted herself to eternal rest in Calcutta on September 5, 1997.

Office of Readings

Second Reading
From the writings of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Virgin
(Letter sent to Rev. Joseph Neuner, circa 1960: B. Kolodiejchuk, Mother Teresa. Come be my light, p. 209-212)

If my darkness is light to some soul, I am perfectly happy

In Loreto, Father, I was very happy—I think the happiest nun. Then the call came. Our Lord asked directly; the voice was clear and full of conviction. Again and again he asked in 1946. I knew it was he. Fear and terrible feelings were in me, fear lest I was deceived. But as I have always lived in obedience, I put the whole thing before my spiritual father, hoping the whole time that he would say it was all the devil’s deception, but no. Like the voice, he said: "It is Jesus who is asking you." And then you know how it all worked out. My Superiors sent me to Asansol in 1947 and there, it was as if Our Lord just gave himself to me, to the full. The sweetness and consolation and union of those six months passed but too soon. And then the work started, in December 1948.

Now, Father, since 1949 or 1950 there has been this terrible sense of loss, this untold darkness, this loneliness, this continual longing for God—which gives me that pain deep down in my heart. The darkness is such that I really do not see, neither with my mind nor with my reason. The place of God in my soul is blank. There is no God in me. When the pain of longing is so great I just long and long for God; and then it is that I feel he does not want me, he is not there. Heaven, souls… why, these are just words which mean nothing to me. My very life seems so contradictory. I help souls—to go where? Why all this? Where is the soul in my very being? God does not want me. Sometimes I just hear my own heart cry out "My God," and nothing else comes. The torture and pain I can’t explain. From my childhood I have had a most tender love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but this too has gone. I feel nothing before Jesus, and yet I would not miss Holy Communion for anything.

You see, Father, the contradiction in my life. I long for God—I want to love him, to love him much, to live only for love of him, to love only—and yet there is nothing but pain, longing, and no love. Years back, about seventeen years now, I wanted to give God something very beautiful. I bound myself under pain of mortal sin not to refuse him anything. Since then I have kept this promise, and when sometimes the darkness is very dark and I am on the verge of saying "No" to God, the thought of that promise pulls me up.

I want only God in my life. "The work" is really and solely his. He asked, he told me what to do. He guided every step, directs every movement I take, puts the words in my mouth, makes me teach the Sisters the way. All that and everything in me is he. This is why when the world praises me, it really does not touch me – not even the surface of my soul. About the work I am convinced it is all he.

Before, I could spend hours before our Lord—loving him, talking to him—and now, not even meditation goes properly, nothing but "My God." Even that sometimes does not come. Yet deep down somewhere in my heart that longing for God keeps breaking through the darkness. When outside, in the work or meeting people, there is a presence of somebody living very close, in my very self. I don’t know what this is but very often, even every day, that love in me for God grows more real. I find myself telling Jesus unconsciously most strange tokens of love.

Father, I have opened my heart to you. Teach me to love God, teach me to love him much. I am not learned; I don’t know many things about the things of God. I want to love God as and what he is to me: "My Father."

My heart and soul and body belong only to God—that he has thrown away as unwanted the child of his Love. And to this, Father, I have made that resolution in this retreat: To be at his disposal. Let him do with me whatever he wants, as he wants, for as long as he wants. If my darkness is light to some soul—even if it be nothing to nobody—I am perfectly happy to be God’s flower of the field.

Responsory
Cf. Sg 3:1-2; 5:6; Ps 37 (36):5

I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him and found him not. I called, and he did not answer me.
— Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

I sought him whom my soul loves: "I will arise and go about the city; through the streets and the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves."
— Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

Prayer

O God, who called the Virgin Saint Teresa
to respond to the love of your Son thirsting on the Cross
with outstanding charity to the poorest of the poor,
grant us, we beseech you, by her intercession,
to minister to Christ in our suffering brothers and sisters.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Excerpts from the English translation of Liturgical Texts for Saint Teresa of Calcutta © 2025 International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation. All rights reserved.