Publish Date: Dec. 29, 1975
Cover Story: Saints Among Us: The Work of Mother Theresa
How TIME Covered the News: As the best-known missionary in the world, ethnic Albanian Mother Theresa became a legend tending to the poor and sick in the slums of Calcutta, India. She had been given a slew of honors, including the Pope’s Peace Prize, and four years after TIME’s story she’d receive the Nobel Peace Prize, too. But she remained steadfast in her commitment to her flock, refusing to let the accolades shake her piety or resolve.
“To many, saint is a medieval word, redolent of incense, conjuring up halos and glowing, distant images of spiritual glory in some great cathedral’s stained-glass windows. To others, the word is still useful, if prosaic, shorthand to describe someone who willingly suffers something that seems beyond the call of duty: a son or daughter, for instance, who spends years caring for a senile and demanding parent. Somewhere between the two is the vision of the contemporary saint as a person of persistently heroic virtue and courage whose life is a model for others —a Mother Teresa, perhaps, or a Mahatma Gandhi.”