Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who devoted herself to helping the poor, will be canonized as a saint, after Pope Francis issued a decree attributing a second miracle to the founder of the Missionaries of Charity.
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Now, in what is considered her second miracle, Mother Teresa is being credited with the healing of a man in Brazil who was suffering from a brain infection.
Mother Teresa’s path to sainthood began in early 1999, less than two years after her death, when Pope John Paul II waived the normal five-year waiting period to open a formal sainthood and allowed the immediate opening of her canonization cause. In 1979, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her charitable spirit and inspiring actions across the world.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is shown blessing an infant in the neo-natal intensive care unit at Saint Margaret’s Center for Women and Infants, in Boston in 1995. Her connection to Kolkata’s people was so strong in fact, that prior to her death in September 1997, she famously returned to the city to spend her final days with the people.
Francis has often bypassed the usual norms to declare someone a saint, which means that the church officially declares that someone is in heaven and worthy of veneration as a model of sanctity by the faithful on Earth.
While Mother Teresa is known and admired by many around the world, she was not beloved by all.
Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity and spent 45 years serving the poor, the sick, the orphaned, and the dying on the streets of Kolkata.
She died on September 5, 1997, at age 87.
Relatives prayed to Mother Teresa and he recovered, leaving his doctors at a loss to explain how.
Detractors also opposed her stance against the use of birth control in Calcutta’s slums, which was nevertheless in keeping with church teaching opposing artificial birth control.
“Bergoglio had Mother Teresa behind him, nearby, and he heard her intervene often with great strength, without letting herself in any way be intimidated by this assembly of bishops”, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, later recounted.
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She was beatified by then pope John Paul II in a fast-tracked process in 2003, in a ceremony attended by some 300,000 pilgrims. “We feel deeply inspired by her and her example will accompany us throughout this Jubilee”, D’Souza said.
