Anne Forsyth, who was at the 1982 commencement to watch her sister graduate, remembered meeting Mother Teresa.
Advertisement
“She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”, the Pope said.
Nonetheless, Mother Teresa faced numerous hardships during her life, most notably, she spends the majority of her life believing God “had abandoned her”, and as such, had a long period of spiritual agony. In 2002, the Vatican ruled it was a miracle when an Indian woman was inexplicably cured of stomach tumors after praying to Mother Teresa.
As the crowd erupted in applause, he said: “So tender and rich that spontaneously we will continue to say Mother Teresa”. 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”. Notably, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a global congregation that provides aid to the the poor, infirm and homeless.
The Rev. Peter Lingdam, head of the lay branch’s Darjeeling branch, told the Press Trust of India: “We wished to experience what Mother Teresa must have felt during that time”.
“She made her voice heard before the powers of the world, so that they might recognise their guilt for the crimes of poverty they themselves created”.
Francis held St. Teresa up as a model for today’s Christians during his homily for the nun who cared for the “poorest of the poor”.
“She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity”.
As if to emphasize the point, which Francis himself has made repeatedly, he said the words again: “The crimes of poverty they themselves created”. Surprisingly, this was less than half the number of people who accompanied Pope John Paul II at her beatification in October 2003.
“Saint Teresa teaches families to love each other, especially loving the poor”.
Sanjay Sarkar, a local high school student, said it was a special day for the city.
Hundreds of Christians gathered at Sainte Famille church in Kigali, yesterday, to celebrate the canonisation of Mother Teresa. “I am so proud to be from Kolkata”.
The concert took place the day before Pope Francis officially named Mother Teresa – who died in September 1997 at the age of 1987 – a saint for her work with the poor in Calcutta, India, and for setting up the Missionaries of Charity. The Mass drew an estimated 120,000 people rich and poor, powerful and homeless to a sun-filled St. Peter’s Square.
For Francis, Mother Teresa put into action his ideal of the church as a merciful “field hospital” for the poorest of the poor, those suffering both material and spiritual poverty.
Hundreds of nuns hailing from Missionaries of Charity religious order Mother Teresa had founded in 1950 also witnessed the canonization. Not only that, nearly one thousand five hundred homeless people and thirteen world leaders, including Queen Sofia of Spain, assisted.
In the second, approved a year ago, Brazilian Marcilio Haddad Andrino says his wife’s prayers to Teresa led to brain tumours disappearing.
“We are blessed with this canonization because we know mother is in heaven and she will pray for us and she will bless us”, said Sister Laisa, assistant superior general of the MoC. For the homeless, Francis offered a luncheon afterward in the Vatican auditorium, catered by a Neapolitan pizza maker who brought his own ovens for the event.
Advertisement
Pope Francis then delivered a homily, in which he praised Mother Teresa – “this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life” – for her charitable work.
