The stage is all set for the canonisation of Blessed Mother Teresa who will be declared a saint on Sunday September 4. Pope Francis reportedly approved the findings of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which found the 2008 healing of a Brazilian man with a brain infection and kidney disease had been due to the intercession of Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa died in 1997 at the age of 87. She was born Anjëzë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to an ethnic Albanian family in Skopje, in what is today the Republic of Macedonia. She founded the Missionaries of Charity, an order of nuns dedicated to care of the “poorest of the poor,” in Kolkata, India, in 1950. By the time her death, her order had more than 4,000 members, known by their distinctive blue-bordered white saris, working on five continents. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and received strong support from Pope John Paul II, who gave her permission to open a soup kitchen inside Vatican City State.
Pope John Paul II was canonised in 2014 along with Pope John XXIII. The Catholic Church normally requires one so-called medical miracle before a deceased Catholic can be declared “blessed,” and another such miracle, occurring after that declaration, before he or she can be canonised as a saint. Saint John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa in 2003, after an expedited process that began only 18 months after her death. A 30-year-old woman in Kolkata said she was cured of a stomach tumor after praying to Mother Teresa. A Vatican committee said it could find no scientific explanation for her healing and declared it a miracle. The Vatican normally waits a minimum of five years after someone’s death before considering beatification. Beatification is formally an honor restricted to someone’s home diocese, whereas canonised saints are venerated by Catholics everywhere. But Mother Teresa has been the object of worldwide devotion since her death. India accorded her a state funeral. Even though Mother was born in Albania she considered herself as Indian. “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus,” is how she would describe herself.
