Pope Francis’ predecessor Pope John Paul II bent Vatican rules to fast-track Mother Teresa to sainthood – a process which usually does not start until five years after the candidate’s death -two years after she died in 1997.
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For the newly-sainted Teresa, he said, “mercy was the salt which gave flavor to her work, it was the light which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering”.
“This mother was simple, very poor and devout and for us she is a testament to serving others”, Sister Leandra said. “Sainthood of Mother Teresa is a memorable & proud moment”, Modi, who is in this east Chinese city for the G20 Summit, said in a tweet.
Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity sisters in their trademark blue-trimmed white saris had front-row seats at the Mass, alongside 1,500 homeless people and 13 heads of state or government and even royalty: Queen Sofia of Spain. Those fears prompted a huge, 3,000-strong law enforcement presence to secure the area around the Vatican and close the airspace above.
“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like”, Teresa once said, “but I don’t know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, How many good things have you done in your life?, rather he will ask, How much love did you put into what you did?”
Speaking in Latin, Francis said that “after due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint, and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole church”.
The Catholic Church has also credited Mother Teresa with performing two miracles after her death in 1997.
Thousands of pilgrims are thronging to 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 find lost, wounded souls.
Francis has never publicly mentioned this “darkness”, but he has in many ways modeled his papacy on Mother Teresa’s simple lifestyle and selfless service to the poor: He eschewed the Apostolic Palace for a hotel room, made welcoming migrants and the poor a hallmark and has fiercely denounced today’s “throwaway” culture that discards the unborn, the sick and the elderly easily.
Saint Teresa’s canonization happened quickly, too. The ceremony came on the eve of the 19th anniversary of Teresa’s death in Kolkata, where she spent almost four decades working in wretched slums.
“Let the example of Mother Teresa inspire all of us to dedicate ourselves to the welfare of mankind”, said Indian President Pranab Mukherjee. “Always a saint in our hearts, now a saint for all the world”, one Italian-language sign read. In 1946, she received what she described as a “call within a call” to found a new order dedicated to caring for the most unloved and unwanted, the “poorest of the poor”.
Francis has never publicly mentioned this “darkness”, but he has in many ways modeled his papacy on Teresa and her simple lifestyle and selfless service to the poor: He eschewed the Apostolic Palace for a hotel room, made welcoming migrants and the poor a hallmark and has fiercely denounced today’s “throwaway” culture that discards the unborn, the sick and the elderly easily.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, now in Macedonia, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950.
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Known as the “Saint of the Gutters”, the Roman Catholic nun devoted her life to helping the poor, the sick, and the marginalized.
