Mother Teresa to be canonized in September
NEW DELHI— Nuns with the missionary order of the late Mother Teresa joined in hymns and offered special prayers Tuesday after Pope Francis announced that the famed caregiver of the Indian slums will be elevated to sainthood in September.
“We are very happy,” Sunita Kumar, a longtime friend of Teresa, told reporters shortly after the Vatican announcement that Francis set Sept. 4 for the canonization.
Members of Teresa’s Missionaries of Charities broke into prayerful celebration next to her tomb in Kolkata, which she adopted as her home for more than four decades and served the homeless and desperately poor.
The canonization will take place at the Vatican, a day before the 19th anniversary of her death. But Kolkata has already started preparing with church-organized events for the woman known as the “saint of the gutter.”
The announcement “not only has brought smiles on our faces but also has given us another reason to live and bring meaning to our lives and the lives of others,” said Archbishop Thomas D’Souza, who celebrated a special mass. “Because Mother, as an icon of mercy, of service of God’s love and his presence among the poorest of poor continues to give meaning to lives of everyone.”
Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what is now Skopje, Macedonia, joined the Loreto order of nuns in 1928, and said she was inspired to found the Missionaries of Charity while on a trip to India in 1946.
The order now has more than 130 centres around the world. The nuns are recognizable by their signature look of a plain white cotton sari with a blue border.
Pope John Paul II beatified Teresa in 2003, the first step toward possible sainthood. Even as she is beloved by many Indians, Teresa’s work has drawn criticism from some groups in India.
Last year, Mohan Bhagwat, the head of India’s largest Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said her work had an “ulterior motive” to convert Indians to Christianity.
“In the name of service, religious conversions were made,” Bhagwat said.