CTS Biographies - Ignatius Press

12M OTHER T ERESAand taking part in parish activities, she would have herhead in a book, an avid reader.A young Jesuit priest, Fr Jambrenovic, had set up aparish library. He became parish priest in 1925 andseemed to have a great rapport with the young people ofhis parish. He set up for them the Sodality of the BlessedVirgin Mary and the youngsters were challenged by thewords of the Jesuit founder St Ignatius Loyola: “Whathave I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? Whatwill I do for Christ?” The young people were encouragedto serve Christ in His poor.They also learned about the lives of saints andmissionaries. It was possibly via the parish library thatAgnes first learned about and was exposed to the writingsof the young French Carmelite nun who was canonised in1925: St Thérèse of Lisieux. In 1927 the young saint wasdeclared patroness of missionaries.That same year in far-away India, Mohandas Gandhisuggested to the Christians in India, “... start at the bottom... In a word, ... go to the people not as patrons, but as oneof them, not to oblige them, but to serve them and workamong them.” Little could he have known that in a farflungcorner of south-eastern Europe there was a youngAlbanian girl who would one day be revered as India’sgreatest citizen alongside Gandhi himself!But all that was far in the future. In 1927 in SkopjeAgnes and two of her friends were receiving mandolin