ALSO READ: Mother Teresa’s canonization: After nearly two decades, why only now?
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In India, a series of events were held in Kolkata to mark the occasion. He says Mother Teresa appeared to him in a dream when he was recovering from a leg injury that could have left him permanently disabled.
Describing the conferment of sainthood as a great blessing for the whole Church, the whole world and for the whole country and in a special way, for Kolkata, Sister Lysa said, “A saint is one who has deep love and union with God”.
Pope Francis then delivered a homily, in which he praised Mother Teresa – “this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life” – for her charitable work.
Now that Mother Teresa has finally become a saint, talks about a feature film on her life and death are brewing.
While still not particularly enamoured of Mother Teresa personally, she could not “criticise a woman who picked people off filthy pavements to allow them to die in dignity”. “They all really like to model themselves after her work and her beliefs”.
“Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer”, he added.
At the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity group that she founded in Kolkata, hundreds of people watching the Mass on TV clapped with joy when Francis declared her a saint.
After the canonization service, the pope treated 1,500 homeless people from across Italy to Neapolitan pizza served by members of Mother Teresa’s order.
“Saint Teresa found Christ the supreme good in those that the world considers rubbish”, said Roman Catholic Bishop Jaime Soto.
The process usually does not start until at least five years after the candidate’s death.
At the Vatican, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee provided a touch of Bengal in the canonisation as she walked around singing popular Bengali devotional songs.
According to correspondence that came to light after she died in 1997, Mother Teresa experienced what the church calls a “dark night of the soul” – a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that numerous great mystics experienced.
The approved miracle involved Monica Besra, a 30-year-old Kolkata woman who said praying to the nun cured a stomach tumor.
“I took doctors’ medicines, threw up and was in a lot of pain”. “Singing What Child Is This to celebrate her life and legacy will be a moment I cherish forever”. So yes I am happy. John Barwa, Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar, who asked the state authorities to recognize a street named after the Saint precisely in the Indian State that was home to the fiercest theater massacre against Christians.
Mother Teresa was born in 1910 to ethnic Albanian parents.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
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Although movies had been made in the past about the iconic nun, Benegal, however, stressed that Mother Teresa “does deserve a proper feature film”. “She taught us that what we are doing it not for us as humans, but we are doing it for Christ”, she said. And some doctors claim Besra was healed by modern medicine, not by prayer. Her order has offices in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australia, as well as Hong Kong and Russian Federation.
