Canonisation of Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa was formally canonised on Sep 4 by Pope Francis. The recognition and veneration of specific holy people provide models of Christian living for the faithful. Even before the canonisation, people across religions and nationalities revered her. Her services to the poorest among the poor moves even the most hardened heart.

People in India who already revere her like a saint will not be too impressed by her canonisation. For them, she is already a saint and they do not need the imprimatur of the Church. It seems that it is the Church that stands to gain by the canonisation of Mother Teresa. The Church gains a sense of legitimacy which it had been losing over the last few decades, especially with the exposure of child abuse by priests of the church.

Mother Teresa was born as Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on 26 Aug 1910 in Skopje, which was then a part of Albania. She was only 12 years old when she first felt the desire to become a nun by renouncing a worldly and materialistic life. When she became 18, she decided to leave her home and family to become a nun to serve the poor. Since then, she never doubted her decision to become a nun. She spent a brief time as a young Postulant in Rathfarnham, Ireland before she made her voyage to India. When she arrived in India, she was despatched to the Loreto Novitiate, Darjeeling, where she began her life as a novice. On May 24, 1931, she took her first vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. She was inspired by Theresa Martin, a French nun who prayed for missionaries, and their success. In her honour, she took the name Teresa.

Another important turning point in her life was on Sep 10, 1946. On the train to Darjeeling, she heard the call to leave Loreto and to start working for the poorest among the poor. In her own words, leaving Loreto where she was a headmistress — was the most difficult thing she had ever done.

Rampant poverty and war compelled her to work in an unconventional way.She died in 1997 and the world mourned her. Why? Because she integrated people and brought them into one another's lives Mother Teresa is most often associated with St John Paul II, who was pope during the heyday of her work. But Pope Francis seems more a pope in her likeness, eschewing the Apostolic Palace for a simple hotel room, focusing his ministry on the most marginal of society and travelling to the peripheries to find lost souls   just as Mother Teresa did. Her humble work that started from a small slum in Motijhil in Kolkata has now spread to more than 130 countries. The life of Mother Teresa inspires millions all over the world to serve humanity.

Pope Francis praised Mother Teresa as the merciful saint who defended the lives of the unborn, sick and abandoned and who shamed world leaders for the "crimes of poverty they themselves created".



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