With a large tapestry bearing the portrait of the woman known as the “Saint of the Gutters” suspended above him, Pope Francis proclaimed the sainthood of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, hailing her courage and love for the poor.
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But despite the honor of being made a saint, Mother Teresa’s legacy is divisive.
Francis described Teresa as a “dispenser of divine mercy”, in a homily he delivered after completing the canonisation process.
“Her heart, she gave it to the world”, said Charlotte Samba, a 52-year-old mother of three who travelled with a church group from Gabon for the Mass. “Mercy, forgiveness, good works: It is the heart of a mother for the poor”.
She also “made her voice heard before the powers of this world so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created”, Pope Francis said.
Abraham, an Indian expatriate in London, said Teresa’s life had set a unique example to the world.
The canonisation ceremony came a day before the 19th death anniversary of Mother Teresa. The other reportedly healed multiple brain tumors in a man after his family prayed to Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa is the third saint to be canonized by Pope Francis this year.
In a recent interview with Italian magazine Credere, the Pope said: We are used to bad news, cruel news, and to even bigger atrocities, which offend the name and life of God.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner’s path to canonisation was sealed after the Vatican previous year recognised the second of two required miracles, following her death. She arrived in 1929 to teach high school as a young nun in the Loretto order and eventually secured permission from the Vatican to found her own order, the Missionaries of Charity.
Nuns from the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, India, watch a live broadcast of the canonisation of Mother Teresa at a ceremony held in the Vatican, September 4, 2016. The homeless, most of who live in shelters run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity order, came to Rome overnight on buses from across Italy.
Thousands of pilgrims fill St. Peter’s Square for the canonization of Mother Teresa, the tiny nun who cared for the world’s most unwanted and became the icon of a Catholic Church that goes to the peripheries to tend to lost, wounded souls.
On September 5, 1997, I was working for a newsmagazine called Sunday, that was published out of Calcutta (it became Kolkata only in 2001).
Mother Teresa was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work helping people living in poverty in Kolkata, India. He later officially declared her a saint. In a statement announcing the canonization, the Vatican called her a “metaphor for selfless devotion and holiness”.
The Church defines as saints those believed to have led such holy lives they are now in Heaven and can intercede with God to perform miracles – two of which are needed to confer sainthood.
Father Savarimuthu Sankar, of the Archdiocese of Delhi, said: “Mother Teresa taught us the real virtue of love and that we should not give from our abundance but share whatever we have”.
A public meeting was held and a souvenir was also released at the Mother Teresa Church in the heart of the state capital.
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On another occasion, Chen donated a check to the Missionaries of Charity on behalf of someone else, and later received a card in reply bearing her signature.
