Churches across the world paid respect to Mother Teresa on Sunday after she was declared a saint in a canonization mass at the Vatican.
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A miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, involving one Monica Besra who claimed that her prayer to the nun healed her stomach tumor, led to her beatification by Pope John Paul II in 2002.
While her sainthood wasn’t the sole focus of this mass, Mother Teresa was definitely a hot topic of discussion.
Pope Francis however, held world powers to account “for the crimes of poverty they created”.
The Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa, conducted a special mass in Calcutta, India.
The Nobel Peace Prize victor, who died in 1997 and was famed for her work with the poor in India – but fiercely criticized by some – was praised by Francis as a “generous dispenser of divine mercy”. Teresa, who was canonized largely because of her work with the poor, surely would have appreciated the gesture.
Mother Teresa, the nun whose work with the dying and destitute of Kolkata made her a global icon of Christian charity, was made a saint on Sunday.
In his interview with FOX 13, Pastor Diaz described what it means to become a Saint. “When you were fortunate enough to know her, as I did, then today’s celebration doesn’t change much”.
Dolan and those in attendance at St. Patrick’s Cathedral remembered Mother Teresa as a role model for their lives and the lives of countless others. This comes as no surprise as the Pope, who prioritises the poor, was eager to make her a saint during the church’s present Holy Year.
Saint Teresa’s journey to canonization is shorter than most.
Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee, reporting from the Vatican, said that speeding up the canonisation of Teresa helped the Pope Francis’ campaign for social justice.
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And Mother Teresa captured the essence of motherhood, because she loved even the most
unlovable.
