They included USA presidents and Britain’s Princess Diana.
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The Brazilian man whose “miraculous” cure from a brain infection paved the way for Mother Teresa’s canonisation this weekend said he is gratefulfor his life but doesn’t feel particularly chosen by God.
“It was incredible to work with her”, Callahan says.
The nun was also a controversial figure to some. “The sisters devote their whole life to helping people”. He said the photo is a reminder of his current mission. “This year the world has turned its attention to the plight of children and refugees, and these are precisely the categories for whom Mother Teresa has for many years worked so selflessly”.
“Because of the lifestyle that she had it was so obvious that her sainthood would be inevitable”, said Kay Landry, Community of Jesus Crucified Catholic Church member. “Any good work will be challenged – but if the work is genuinely good it will survive such criticism and carry on to be God’s true work”, Sister Nicole was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
For the record, the postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause says her case, which stretched over 20 years, cost less than 100,000 euros. She garnered praise from across the world including from Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a auto crash just six days before Mother Teresa in 1997.
If the postulator finds someone was healed after praying for the candidate’s intercession, and if the cure can not be medically explained, the case is presented to the congregation as the possible miracle needed for beatification, the first major hurdle in the saint-making process. The charitable religious order she founded still has centres across the world, with thousands of nuns and volunteers running soup kitchens, shelters, hospices and orphanages. “She immediately said, ‘let me see the boys.’ We made our way to the front and she gave us a big hug”, Callahan said. The tumor in her stomach meant she could not eat or sleep for days. However, he said, just one month later, Rocha was pregnant.
He said that several events are planned in the run up to the ceremony, including a prayer vigil on Friday, an audience in St Peter’s Square with Francis on Saturday morning.
Kolodiejchuk, though, says she was no hypocrite.
In 2003, Pope John Paul II officially recognised Moncia Besra’s cure as a miracle, leading to Mother Teresa’s beatification – the first step in the path to Sainthood.
In 1987-88, Kean, at the time 22 years old, was living in Rome working for a group tied to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. She came in and attended Mass with a few detainees.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, in what is now Macedonia, she joined the Loreto order of nuns in 1928. She visited their offices in the 1980s and kept correspondence over the years.
“Prayer was her strength”, recalled Olivet who was associated with Mother Teresa since 1973 in Kolkata, when it was called Calcutta.
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Kolodiejchuk also went out of his way to speak with the Noble Peace Prize winner’s critics, including the now deceased author Christopher Hitchens, who criticized the petite nun for accepting money from questionable donors while failing to modernize her hospices.
