Francis has declared Mother Teresa a saint, honoring the tiny nun who cared for the world’s most destitute as an icon for a Catholic Church that goes to the peripheries to find poor, wounded souls.
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Mother Teresa, revered for her work with the poor in India, has been proclaimed a saint by Pope Francis in a ceremony at the Vatican.
Pope Francis as he leaves after a Holy Mass and the canonisation of Mother Teresa of Kolkata, in Saint Peter’s square at the Vatican, on September 4, 2016.
Mother Teresa worked with the poor in Kolkata for almost four decades, having initially come to eastern India as a missionary teacher with Ireland’s Loreto order.
“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. He repeated that line again, emphasizing a point that he has made numerous times as pope: “The crimes of poverty they themselves created”. As if to emphasize the point, Francis repeated the “the crimes of poverty they themselves created”.
Saint Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. The pope added that she deserves sainthood and looks forward to pronouncing her “Saint Teresa of Calcutta”.
Mother Teresa was born in 1910 to ethnic Albanian parents.
Pope Francis presented Mother Teresa’s opposition to abortion and her dedication to the poor as facets of a single mission.
She died in 1997 and was put on a fast-track for sainthood soon thereafter. She continues her legacy of working and praying with the poor alongside other nuns at the Missionaries of Charity.
Kaliea says despite so many years passing, he still lives by the lessons he learned from Mother Teresa.
Monday marks 19 years since the death of Mother Teresa.
“She asked people to give until it hurts, not the money, but everything, give love until it hurts”.
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Most of those invited live in shelters run by the new saint’s order, the Sisters of Charity. Once, in 1992 and then a more extensive trip in 1996, where she prayed at the Baltimore Basilica and visited the Catholic Relief Services Headquarters.
