Come September 4, 2016 and Vatican will be the central point of the world’s attention when Pope Francis leads a grand ceremony for canonization of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata – popularly called Mother Teresa, just a day before the 19th dead anniversary of the Nobel Laureate, who spent a major part of her 87 year life serving the poor and the sick, including lepers, on the streets of Kolkata, West Bengal, besides various other places in India and even abroad. The elevation of Mother Teresa to sainthood comes after the Catholic Church recognized on December 17, last year, a second miracle attributed to her, nearly eight years ago. A consistory or formal meeting of Pope Francis with Cardinals and Church officials who promote sainthood causes, however, approved Mother Teresa’s canonization on March 15, this year.
‘Sainthood’ in Catholicism is an official confirmation by the Church that someone is ‘in heaven’ and ‘worthy of veneration as a model of sanctity by the faithful on Earth’. The procedure for sainthood begins with documenting ‘life and virtues of a holy man/woman’, five years after death. Waiting period ensures person has enduring reputation for sanctity. But the Pope can waive off the period or a part of it in certain specific cases or circumstances. Normally, after five years, local Bishop petitions the Holy See to start the process for beatification – the first step towards sainthood. The meeting of cardinals and promoters of the sainthood causes, also known as an ‘ordinary public consistory’, formally ends the process of approving a new Saint. Canonization is an important ritualistic formality – the last step that the Pope, on recommendation of the cardinals, signs the decree.
As per Catholic Church tradition, there should be at least two miracles – one before and the other after beatification, attributed to the person on way to attaining his/her sainthood. The two miracles attributed to Motehr Teresa are: the healing of a woman from Dangram village in West Bengal of abdominal tumour in 2002 (before beatification) and the healing of a Brazilian man of eight brain abscesses in 2008 (after beatification). Both the medical cases required surgery, but the two patients completely recovered from their ailments after they prayed to God through the intercession of Mother Teresa.
Mother Teresa’s canonization will have a special universal significance because of her wide popularity, particularly after she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, for her selfless service to humanity – without differentiating anyone she cared for, on the basis of race, caste or creed. As a person, she lived a most humble life and her life’s motto was ‘live simply so others may simply live’. In fact, Mother Teresa lived the Gospel’s message of love and mercy.
Mother Teresa was born Anjeze Gonxha Bojaxhiu of Albanian parents on August 26, 1910, in Skopje (present day Macedonia), in what was then part of the Ottoman empire. At age 12, she felt first call to religious life. She left her home at the age of 18 and moved to Ireland where after an intensive training in Dublin, became a Roman Catholic Loretto nun and took the name Sister Teresa.
She came to India in 1929, and initially worked as a teacher at St. Mary’s School in Kolkata. On October 7, 1950, she founded Missionaries of Charity with 12 other nuns after getting necessary permission from Vatican, and became an Indian citizen a year later, in 1951. Since then, Mother Teresa spent more than 45 years of her life serving the poor, the orphaned, the sick and the dying on the streets of Kolkata and elsewhere in the country, for which work she was often referred to as the ‘Saint of the Gutters’.
Mother Teresa visited Goa in 1964 and set up the first shelter-home of the Missionaries of Charity in the state at an old traditional house in Carambolim. During the next 22 years after her first visit – till 1986, she came to Goa on several occasions and set up three more such homes in Panjim, Quepem and Cuncolim, which today cater to more than 200 resident destitute – males and females – including the old, the orphaned, the unwanted besides the physically and mentally challenged.
She became globally known for her Missionaries of Charity’s work with Lepers, particularly after she opened a first mission outside India in Venezuela in 1965. In 1971 she received Pope John XXIII Peace Prize, but she used the money to build a lepers colony in Kolkata. She was bestowed with the ‘Bharat Ratna’ by the government of India in 1980, almost a year after she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1983 she was hospitalized with heart attack, the first of several in the next around 14 years, which prompted her to step down as the head of the Missionaries of Charity in March 1997. She died on September 5, the same year, aged 87, at the ‘Mother’s House’, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, and was given a state funeral, with hosts of people from different walks of life, including many local as well as foreign dignitaries, attending the public ceremony to pay their last respect to the departed soul of one of the most highly distinguished personality of our modern era.
A huge number of her devotees from Kolkata, Goa and other parts of India are expected to gather in Vatican, joining a multitudes of others from across the world, to witness the historic canonization ceremony. According to media reports, besides Catholic religious and lay people, a large number of people from different other faiths who worked with Mother Teresa – facilitated her efforts, travelled with her and were very closely associated with her mission of serving the poor and the sick, will be attending the ceremony. Meanwhile, the Mother Teresa International Film Festival (MTIFF), organized by the World Catholic Association for Communication (WCAC), India chapter, will reportedly be kicked off in Kolkata on August 26 (birthday of Mother Teresa) after which it will travel to over 100 other locations in India and around 50 other countries across the globe, for the next six months.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
