Small in stature, mighty in mercy—Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (1910–1997) was born on this day in Skopje, the capital of what is now the Republic of Macedonia. The daughter of a wealthy Albanian contractor, she felt a calling early and entered the Roman Catholic Sisters of Loreto at age 17.

She took the name “Teresa” after Saint Theresa, patron saint of missionaries, and was soon sent to Calcutta, India, where her heart would remain forever.

“Intense love does not measure; it just gives,” she said. In 1950, responding to what she described as a “call within a call,” she founded the Missionaries of Charity to care for the poorest of the poor—those she saw as the living face of Christ.

With more than 350 missions, she wove a global network of hope, humility, and inspiration. “The biggest disease today,” she explained, “is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.”

Mother Teresa embraced all religions, urging people of every faith to live together in love. In a 1974 interview, she whispered, “I see God in every human being... When I wash the leper’s wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself.”

She received the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize in the name of the “unwanted, unloved, and uncared for,” a living symbol of compassion and kindness in action.

When asked how to promote world peace, she answered with the tender truth: “Go home and love your family.”

Canonized in 2016, she became Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Her nuns and priests continue her work across the world, one soul, one smile, one small act of love at a time.

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing,” she said. And she meant it with her whole heart.