Modern popular culture promotes celebrity: people who are well known for being well known. Stirring up controversy or scandal and then talking or writing about it enhances celebrity status. Yet, the cult of celebrity does not and cannot adequately explain the hold that a tiny nun from Albania had, and retains, on the conscience of the world. For a woman who neither sought nor expected recognition, Mother Teresa has exercised an enormous influence around the world. Her missionary work on behalf of the poorest of the poor in India was larger than life, giving rise to questions about how her own experiences prepared her to carry it out and to accomplish all that she did. By all accounts, Mother Teresa was intelligent but passive and self-effacing. She had been an adequate but undistinguished teacher, a commonplace woman, and an ordinary nun, prone to knocking over candles during religious services. Yet, Mother Teresa had one attribute that set her apart in a world often forgetful of God: a deep, abiding faith.