In September 1946 Mother Teresa was sent for her annual retreat to the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling. During this train journey, she had a mystical encounter with Christ. In this encounter, which Mother later referred to as the 'call within a call', Christ urged her to give up all and follow Him into the slums to serve Him in the poorest of the poor:
"Come be my light," He commanded, "I cannot go alone - they don't know me, so they don't want me. Go amongst them, carry me with you into them..."
Mother then began receiving a series of interior locutions, in which she was really hearing the voice of Jesus and intimately conversing with Him, that continued until the middle of the following year.
In one of these visions she had in 1947, Jesus said to her:
"I want Indian nuns, victims of My love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so very united to Me as to radiate My love on souls... I want free nuns covered with My poverty of the Cross... You will dress in simple Indian clothes or rather like My Mother dressed - simple and poor... Your sari will become holy, because it will be My symbol."
Mother was already a professed Loreto nun and therefore, had to get permission from the Bishop and her superiors to carry out what Christ demanded of her.
On April 12, 1948, the Vatican finally permitted her to work outside the convent. Mother was to remain outside cloister for one year after which Archbishop Périer, the Archbishop of Calcutta, would decide whether she should continue with her work or return to Loreto.
[bron]
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