The searing memoir of an extraordinary woman who served as a nun for eleven years in Mother Teresa's order, Hope Endures is a compelling chronicle of idealistic determination, rigid discipline, and shattering disillusionment. InÊher life's journey from certainty to doubt, Colette Livermore enters the Missionaries of Charity order in 1973 with unwavering faith and total surrender ofÊher will and intellect after seeing a documentary on the order's work in India. Only eighteen at the time, Livermore has been studying to enter medical school -- a lifelong goal -- but virtually overnight severs her many ties with family, friends, and the life she's known in beautiful, rural New South Wales in order to train as a sister to aid the poor. In the process, she also gives herself over to the order's unexpectedly severe, ascetic regime, which demands blind obedience and submission. Given the religious name Sister Tobit, Livermore serves in some of the poorest places in the world -- the garbage dump slums of Manila, Papua New Guinea, and Calcutta -- bringing hope and care to people who are desperately ill, hungry, abandoned, and even dying, and comforting whomever she can. Although she draws inspiration and strength from her humanitarian work, Livermore and other nuns risk their own physical health, as they are sent to dangerous areas while being unschooled in the languages and cultures, untrained in medical care, and sometimes unprotected by vaccines. Livermore herself succumbs to bouts of drug-resistant cerebral malaria that almost kill her and to a new strain of hepatitis. Over time she also beginsÊto notice that the order's rigid insistence on unquestioning obedience harms the young sisters mentally, emotionally, and spiritually -- and she experiences a terrible inner struggle to find the right path for herself. As she tries to respond to the suffering around her, she often falls into an incomprehensible conflict between her vow to obey and her vow to serve, between religious strictures and the practice of compassion, between authority and personal conscience. Pressured to stay with the order by Mother Teresa and other superiors, as well as by the younger nuns, Livermore nonetheless decides to leave at age thirty and attain her medical degree, continuing to take health care and relief to impoverished people in remote areas -- the isolated aboriginal communities of the Outback and war-torn East Timor. Even as she serves others as a medical doctor, she continues in a crisis of faith thatÊeventually leads her to become an agnostic. Hope Endures is the eye-opening, deeply affecting story of a brave woman's search for meaning in a world that is rent with tragedies and contradictions. It is also an unflinching critique of any faith that insists on blind obedience. For true hope to endure, Dr. Livermore demonstrates, we must always strive to question, to face the hard truths, and to discover the courage to follow our convictions.

Born a humble girl in what is now Albania, Agnes Bojaxhiu lived a charitable life. She pledged herself to a religious order at the age of 18 and chose the name Sister Teresa, after the patron saint of missionaries. While teaching in India, where famine and violence had devastated the poor, Teresa shed her habit and walked the streets of Calcutta tending to the needs of the destitute. Her charity work soon expanded internationally, and her name remains synonymous with compassion and devotion to the poor.

"Quotes and spiritual counsel by Mother Teresa with the daily prayers of the Missionaries of Charity."

Published to coincide with Pope Francis's Year of Mercy and the Vatican's canonization of Mother Teresa, this new book of unpublished material by a humble yet remarkable woman of faith whose influence is felt as deeply today as it was when she was alive, offers Mother Teresa’s profound yet accessible wisdom on how we can show mercy and compassion in our day-to-day lives. For millions of people from all walks of life, Mother Teresa's canonization is providentially taking place during Pope Francis's Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. This is entirely fitting since she is seen both inside and outside of the Church as an icon of God's mercy to those in need. Compiled and edited by Brian Kolodiejckuk, M.C., the postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause for sainthood, A Call to Mercy presents deep yet accessible wisdom on how we can show compassion in our everyday lives. In her own words, Mother Teresa discusses such topics as: the need for us to visit the sick and the imprisoned the importance of honoring the dead and informing the ignorant the necessity to bear our burdens patiently and forgive willingly the purpose to feed the poor and pray for all the greatness of creating a “civilization of love” through personal service to others Featuring never before published testimonials by people close to Mother Teresa as well as prayers and suggestions for putting these ideas into practice, A Call to Mercy is not only a lovely keepsake, but a living testament to the teachings of a saint whose ideas are important, relevant and very necessary in the 21st century.

Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle is a Catholic author, a radio and television host, and an inspirational speaker known and admired from coast to coast. Yet with all of her public exposure, she has revealed very little about her personal history, that is, until now. When she discovered that sharing her struggles gives encouragement to others, she was persuaded to write this story of her life. Growing up in a Polish-American Catholic family, Donna-Marie was blessed with hard-working parents who provided a stable home for their eight children. At times her childhood was golden and carefree, but other times it was tarnished by pain that she felt was best left unspoken as she sought God for help and strength. After she left home after high school, her path took some harrowing turns. A Vietnam veteran fiancé snapped and held her against her will. She suffered pregnancy loss, serious illness, divorce, and single motherhood. Perhaps her greatest trial was an epic custody battle in which she needed to defend both her reputation as a mother and the safety of her five children. Yet through all the dark valleys, Donna-Marie kept the fire of her faith burning. Helping her to see the beauty of the crosses in her life, and to rely on the presence and the providence of God, were saintly souls who became her friends and mentors. One of these was Blessed Mother Teresa, who was her confidant and spiritual mother for ten years.

At seventeen, Mary Johnson saw a photo of Mother Teresa on the cover of TIME magazine, and experienced her calling. Eighteen months later she entered a convent in the South Bronx, to begin her religious training. Not without difficulty, this boisterous, independent-minded teenager eventually adapted to the sisters' austere life of poverty and devotion, but beneath the white-and-blue sari an ordinary woman faced the struggles we all share, with the desires of love and connection, meaning and identity. During her years as a Missionary of Charity, Mary Johnson rose quickly through the ranks and came to work alongside Mother Teresa. Mary grapped with her faith, her desires for intimacy, the politics of the order and her complicated relationship with Mother Teresa. Finally, she made the hard, life-changing decision to leave the order to find her own path, and eventually to leave the Church altogether. The story of this compellingly honest woman will speak to anyone who has ever grappled with the mysteries and wonders of life and faith.