12GTREL - Called as Catholics: Home

Communicate the results of an inquiry in the form of an oral presentation that demonstrates an understanding of the different ways people choose to follow a religious (Catholic) way of life. 

Mother Teresa or St. Teresa of Calcutta is also called St. Mother Teresa. Her original name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. She was baptised August 27, 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia. She died September 5, 1997, Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa was canonised September 4, 2016 and her feast day is September 5. She was founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly to the destitute of India. She was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Mother Teresa. (2018). In Encyclopædia Britannica. 

Teresa of Calcutta, St.. [Image]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. 

Father Chris Riley AM, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Youth Off The Streets, has worked with disadvantaged youth for more than 40 years in a variety of roles including teacher, youth worker, probation officer, residential carer, principal and CEO. Father Chris officially founded Youth Off The Streets in 1991.

As CEO of Youth Off The Streets, Father Chris oversees the operation of over 35 programs that employ over 200 staff and involve more than 400 volunteers. He has implemented innovative behaviour modification strategies to help young people deal with a history of trauma, abuse and neglect. He has grown the organisation from a single food van delivering meals to young homeless people on the streets of Kings Cross to a major youth specific agency providing a wide range of services such as crisis accommodation, independent schools, residential treatment programs, centres for youth, Aboriginal programs, and early intervention and prevention programs into troubled suburbs through an outreach service.

Father Chris Riley's Youth off the Streets, n.d. 

Francis, also called Francis I. His original name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was born December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is currently the Bishop of Rome and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the first Pope from the Western Hemisphere, the first from South America, and the first from the Jesuit Order.

Francis. (2018). In Encyclopædia Britannica. 

Francis: celebrating his inaugural mass, Vatican City, March 14, 2013. [Image]. In Encyclopædia Britannica. 

Irene grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in Western Australia and received her schooling form the Sisters of St Joseph. By the time she was 15, Irene McCormack had decided to become a nun. In a letter that shows remarkable maturity, she raised the subject with her mother: “I hope I can rely on you to do what is best, and I thank God for the wonderful parents he has given me. I hope I am not proving a disappointment to you, but it is my duty to God to follow in his calling no matter where it leads.” That calling set her life on a path of devotion and, in 1957, she entered the Sisters of St Joseph in Melbourne.

Irene qualified as a teacher and taught in a number of schools in Australia. Her pupils remember her as feisty, difficult, caring and very human. ‘She was an extraordinary person, she was ordinary, with human frailties like the rest of us.’ After 30 years of teaching in Australian schools she made her decision that she wanted to serve the poor.

Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, n.d.

When Catherine McAuley was born in Dublin on September 29, 1778, the sorrows and blessings of her next forty years were still hidden in what she would later call the Providence of God.

Her father James died in 1783, and her mother Elinor, in 1798. Catherine then learned the purifying lessons of personal poverty and daily dependence on the mercy of others, especially the mercy of God. In 1803, when she became the household manager and companion of an elderly, childless, and wealthy Protestant couple, at their home in Dublin and then at their estate in Coolock, she did not dream that when William Callaghan died in 1822, Catherine Callaghan having died in 1819, she would become the sole residuary legatee of their estate and much of their savings.

In 1824, her inheritance now settled, Catherine implemented a longstanding desire: she built a large house on Baggot Street, Dublin, as a school for poor girls and a shelter for homeless servant girls and women. 

Mercy World, 2010.

On Sunday, October 18, 2015, Pope Francis presided at Mass in St. Peter’s Square which included the Rite of Canonization for Sts. Zelie and Louis Martin.  The Martins had been beatified earlier on October 19, 2008.   

The Pope stated in his homily, “The holy spouses Louis Martin and Marie-Azelie Guerin practiced Christian service in the family, creating day by day an environment of faith and love which nurtured the vocations of their daughters, among whom was Saint Therese of the Child Jesus."  They are the first-ever married couple with children to be canonized in the same ceremony.

Society of the Little Flower, 2019.