Mary Prema Pierick Europe. She returned to India to supervise the tertianship program of the institute, the last stage of training before final religious profession. She succeeded Sister Nirmala Joshi as Superior General on 24 March 2009, heading an institute which had over 5,000 members worldwide at that time. Mary Prema Pierick Sister Mary Prema Pierick, M.C. (born 13 May 1953), is the current Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta, India, the religious institute founded by the Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She was born Mechthild Pierick in a farming community in Reken, Germany. In 1980, after reading the biography
Mother Teresa like angels—loved and wanted." She opened a hospice for those with leprosy, calling it Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity established leprosy-outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, dressings and food. The Missionaries of Charity took in an increasing number of homeless children; in 1955 Teresa opened Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children's Home of the Immaculate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth. The congregation began to attract recruits and donations, and by the 1960s it had opened hospices, orphanages and leper houses throughout India. Teresa then expanded the congregation abroad, opening a house in Venezuela