None other than Pope Francis admitted Sunday he will have a hard time adjusting to her new title.
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The Catholic Church describes saints as those believed to have been holy enough during their lives to now be in heaven and can intercede with God to perform miracles.
Agnese Gonxha Bojaxhiu grew up in what is now the Macedonian capital, Skopje, but was then part of the Ottoman Empire. “That she let go of all that she was and everything that she had in order to serve the poorest of the poor”.
Its over 4,000 members follow Teresa’s injunction to work on “small things with great love” for those suffering both material and spiritual poverty.
Candles and flowers were laid on Teresa’s tomb at the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity. “Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of holiness!”
“Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded”, the Pope said.
Pope Francis however, held world powers to account “for the crimes of poverty they created”.
Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of Mother Teresa by offering some 1,500 homeless people a pizza lunch at the Vatican after her canonization Mass.
Pope Francis’ declaration of Mother Teresa as a saint at a morning Mass, makes her the model of his Jubilee Year of Mercy, and in some ways, his entire papacy.
Faithful attend the Holy Mass and canonization of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, in Saint Peter’s square at the Vatican, on September 4, 2016.
However, the crowds were not as large as the 300,000 who turned out for the new saint’s beatification in 2003.
3,000 police and security officials patrolled the area around the Vatican.
Prem Kaliea met her when she came to visit, and even now 19 years after her death he still remembers.
Pope Francis’ recognition of a second miracle in March 2016 confirmed her way to sainthood. “She’s so recent, she was really showing how we can love in our world, in our day and age”. In Teresa’s case, it lasted for nearly 50 years – an almost unheard of trial.
Despite being widely revered as one of the holiest women of the 20th century, Mother Teresa’s legacy has been called into question by several critics.
As a young woman she felt called to minister to the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta, India.
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“If I’m going to be a saint, I’m going to be a saint of darkness, and I’ll be asking from heaven to be the light of those who are in darkness on Earth”, she once wrote.
