Meanwhile, inside Chicago’s St. John Cantius Parish on the North Side, a member of Teresa’s own Missionaries of Charity order referred to the freshly canonized saint as “Mother Teresa”.
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The white grave – a simple rectangular cement tomb three feet high in what was earlier a dining room – was bedecked with multi-hued flowers, as the nuns, priests and visitors, some of them foreigners, read from the Bible and sang hymns.
Some in the crowd say they remember when Mother Teresa had visited the area back in 1995.
Remembrance programmes were held at various schools.
Applause broke out from the tens of thousands in attendance even before Pope Francis finished the canonization at the start of Mass.
Nineteen years after her death, people around the world celebrated the canonization of Mother Teresa as Saint Teresa of Calcutta. It has been a while since the “angel of mercy” was seen as a saint by many worldwide, well beyond her adopted home in India. “The peace and content that can be seen on their faces is so wonderful”, said one of the followers of Mother Teresa.
Sister Fatima recalls her time being guided by Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
Mother Teresa, known as the “saint of the gutters” during her life, was made a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, 19 years after her death.
Describing the conferment of sainthood as a great blessing for the whole Church, the whole world and for the whole country and in a special way, for Kolkata, Sister Lysa said, “A saint is one who has deep love and union with God”.
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.
Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint at morning Mass in Vatican. “All of India is proud”, said Marina Borneo Sam, who traveled from the slum area of Kolkata with her mother for the ceremony.
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The Norwegian Nobel Committee said her spirit and the respect she had for the worth and dignity of human beings inspired constructive efforts to do away with hunger and poverty.
