Her elevation to Roman Catholicism’s celestial pantheon came in a canonisation mass in St Peter’s square in the Vatican that was presided over by Pope Francis in the presence of 100,000 pilgrims.
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After the Mass, the Pope thanked everyone, especially the Missionaries of Charity whom he called the “spiritual family of Mother Teresa”.
In 2002, the Vatican officially recognised a miracle she was said to have carried out after her death, namely the 1998 healing of a Bengali tribal woman, Monika Besra, who was suffering from an abdominal tumour. About 120,000 people attended the canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. It was in 1950, when she made a decision to travel to Kolkata and in her own words; she described this spiritual journey as the “call within a call”. Tomorrow is her feast day and all of us are waiting for the grand mass that will take place tomorrow, ” said Sister Jessica who belongs to the scalabrinian congregation of the church.
“Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defense of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded”, Francis said.
The church situated in Dum Dum area started functioning around five years ago.
Mother Teresa’s ascension was celebrated in Australia also, with hundreds gathering at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral. At her death anniversary tomorrow, special prayers and mass would again be held in the morning across several churches.
To applause, he added, “Mother Teresa loved to say, “perhaps I don’t speak their language but I can smile”. She continues her legacy of working and praying with the poor alongside other nuns at the Missionaries of Charity. Volunteers and admirers converged on Mother House to watch the canonization ceremony, which was being broadcast on giant TV screens in Kolkata and elsewhere.
“Just how she helped everybody – she was so selfless”, Tracey Korczyk said.
Though her name was a byword for selfless piety, Mother Teresa was still controversial.
Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, then part of the Ottoman Empire and is now capital of Macedonia. It was on the way that she felt what she called “an order” from God to leave the convent and live among the poor.
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The pizzas were served to the guests by 250 sisters and priests of the order. The caring woman was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
