In 2002, the Vatican ruled it was a miracle when an Indian woman was inexplicably cured of stomach tumors after praying to Mother Teresa.
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Best known as Mother Teresa, she reported having divine visions while still living in Skopje, at the Sacred Heart of Jesus church, where a memorial home in her honor now stands.
Pope Francis delivered a canonization mass in the Vatican.
Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents, Mother Teresa grew up in the then Macedonian capital Skopje, which used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1946, she received what she described as a “call within a call” to found a new order dedicated to caring for the most unloved and unwanted, the “poorest of the poor”.
“Pope Francis, Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa are the church figures I admire and love most and in some way all three are here today”, O’Brien said.
“I think the most awesome thing about her is that we all knew she was a saint when she walked among us while working with the poor, and that’s what we’re all called to do and to be as followers of Jesus”, Bishop Bambera said.
Pope Francis today proclaimed Mother Teresa of Kolkata a saint, hailing her as the personification of maternal love and a powerful advocate for the poor. “She made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created”, the Pontiff said.
Hundreds of nuns from the Missionaries of Charity were on hand for the ceremony, with plans to feed 1,500 homeless people with pizza. “We may have some difficulty in calling her “Saint” Teresa”, the pontiff said.
Besides her connection to Mahanoy City, Saint Teresa of Calcutta also has a history with the city of Scranton.
She died in 1997 and was put on a fast-track for sainthood soon thereafter. She founded the religious congregation “Missionaries of Charity”, which still has thousands of sisters working around the world. The low turnout suggested that financial belt-tightening and security fears in the wake of Islamic extremist attacks in Europe may have kept pilgrims away.
She died in 1997 after a lifetime spent caring for hundreds of thousands of destitute and homeless poor in Kolkata, for which she came to be called the “saint of the gutters”.
Those fears prompted a huge, 3,000-strong law enforcement presence to secure the area around the Vatican and close the airspace above.
Mother Mary Catherine spent the next ten years working with Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s organization out in the South Bronx in NY where Mother Mary Catherine was mentored by Mother Teresa.
But despite those miracles, some believe her sainthood isn’t deserved.
Her legacy fits neatly with Pope’s vision of a poor church that strives to serve the poor, and the ceremony will be a highlight of his Holy Year of Mercy which runs until November 8.
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Francis has never publicly mentioned this “darkness”, but he has in many ways modeled his papacy on Mother Teresa’s simple lifestyle and selfless service to the poor: He eschewed the Apostolic Palace for a hotel room, made welcoming migrants and the poor a hallmark and has fiercely denounced today’s “throwaway” culture that discards the unborn, the sick and the elderly easily. She left for Ireland and eventually India, where she gained world-wide prominence for her work to help sick, elderly and impoverished people, eventually being awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.
