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“She came right in, she said what she wanted to say and she walked right back out”.
The canonization was the highlight of Francis’ Holy Year of Mercy and may come to define his entire papacy, which has been dedicated to ministering to society’s most marginal, from refugees to prostitutes, the sick, poor and elderly.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to fill St Peter’s Square to see Pope Francis lead the ceremony. A doctor from Kolkata, a seminary student from Chandrapur in Maharashtra, a Ugandan and an 85-year-old woman from the U.S. are among thousands who have gathered to make the Vatican the world’s biggest melting pot and witness the ritual that will end in Agnes Gonxha from Albania (now Macedonia) becoming Saint Teresa. “Reflecting about Mother and the life of our mother, we see all the works of mercy – corporal and spiritual – put into action”.
Thousands attended a papal audience on Saturday in the Vatican, where a large canvas of the late nun in her blue-hemmed white robes hung from St. Peter’s basilica.
The homeless, most of who live in shelters run by Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity order, came to Rome overnight on buses from across Italy to take part in Sunday’s Mass.
Mother Teresa had visited the Vasai Diocese – in which Virar is situated – with a Christian population of 137,000 in April 1986, and this is said to be the only church in India to be named after her. Because even with tickets we gotta go through security checkpoints. Those fears prompted a huge, 3,000-strong law enforcement presence to secure the area around the Vatican and close the airspace above.
According to the President, Mother Teresa believed that giving something of our self conferred real joy and the person allowed to give was the one who received the most precious gift.
According to correspondence that came to light after she died in 1997, Mother Teresa experienced what the church calls a “dark night of the soul” – a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that numerous great mystics experienced.
The canonisation Mass begins with hymns and proceed nearly immediately to the rite of canonization: the declaration that Mother Teresa is now a saint.
At the Mother House here tomorrow, a special mass will be organised and the nuns have promised to celebrate the occasion with the poorest of the poor. She said, ‘Love isn’t love until you give it away.
“What she described as the greatest poverty in the world today (of feeling unloved) she herself was living in relationship with Jesus”, he said in an interview on the eve of the canonization. They’re getting seats of honor for the celebration and will then be served lunch in the lobby of the Vatican auditorium.
Born to Kosovar Albanian parents in what is now Macedonia in 1910, Teresa died in 1997. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950.
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The beloved religious leader, who famously founded an order of nuns on the streets of Kolkata, India, left a lasting impression on the local Catholics who met her during her visits to MA. “In recognition of Mother Teresa’s selfless and dedicated services, a grateful nation conferred on her India’s highest civilian award “Bharat Ratna” in 1980″, he said. “In the history of sainthood and that of Christianity, she is the first saint of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, non-religious and of course for Christians”.
