Our very own Mother Teresa – Indian by deed if not by birth – was officially declared a saint by the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis at the Vatican on 4 September 2016. Here are some of the touching and heartening stories about the transformation of Mother Teresa into St Teresa of Calcutta:
Christina, a woman from Barcelona had adopted her son Hannock from a Mother Teresa charitable home in Ethiopia. She was at the Vatican for her 50th birthday because her family had gifted her a trip to Rome for the occasion. She had no idea that Mother Teresa was to be declared a saint, but was able to be present for that very significant event by sheer chance. The story of Christina and Hannock has now gone viral and Hannock had this to say: "I love my mother and thank you Mother Teresa for bringing us together."
The first two miracles (a precondition for declaring anyone a saint by the Vatican) attributed to Mother Teresa were a 30 year old woman who was cured of a stomach tumor by praying to the Mother and the curing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumors when his family prayed to her.
Marcilio Haddad Andrin, a mechanical engineer is the Brazilian man who was cured of his brain tumors and he was present at the canonization ceremony. He was greeted by the Pope and expressed his gratitude to the saint.
Battery Park in New York now has a statue of St Teresa in her trademark head covering saree, caressing a little child. The erection of the statue was blessed by Bishop Gerald Walsh, vicar general of the Archdiocese of New York and the event organized by Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj, a Bronx Democrat of Albanian descent (Mother Teresa was also of Albanian descent).
There is now a road in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha that has been named after St Teresa. The road linking Satya Nagar and Cuttack-Puri highway will henceforth be known by her name.
The ‘saint of the gutters’ received glowing tributes from the world over, including Pope Francis during his address to the faithful at the occasion of her canonization. He called her the “dispenser of divine mercy” and described her as someone who made the powers that be “recognize their guilt for the crimes of poverty they themselves created.”
Because of their vow of poverty and the selfless lives that the nuns of the Missionaries of Charity live, there is no TV at Mother House (global headquarters for Missionaries of Charity). The 300 nuns who live there borrowed a TV so that they could watch their beloved Mother's canonization by Pope Francis.
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