Most people assume that saints are sustained by their vibrant faith, which carries them through toil and trouble. Mother Teresa, who will be canonised tomorrow, worked heroically, despite letters revealing her secret ‘dark night’ of the soul

Mother Teresa – baptised Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu – was born in Albania in 1910. Her mother, Drana, used to care for an old woman living nearby who was ravaged by alcoholism and covered with sores. Drana washed and cooked for her. Years later, Mother Teresa would say that the woman suffered as much from her crushing loneliness as from her illnesses.
A Jesuit priest’s talk about the work of Catholic missionaries struck a chord in Agnes, who had dreamed of a religious vocation as early as the age of 12. In October 1928, at the age of 18, she entered the novitiate of the Loreto Sisters in Dublin. Three months later, Sr Mary Teresa set sail for India. She would spend the rest of her life there.

Her early years in India mirrored the lives of the other Loreto Sisters: she taught in a Catholic school run by the order in Calcutta and elsewhere. The mission of the Loreto Sisters focused on tackling poverty through education. It was as a teacher that she had her first experience of the living conditions of local children and their families. “It is not possible to find worse poverty,” she wrote.