Mother Teresa will be Declared a Saint September 4

By Suma Iyer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
By Suma Iyer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Pope Francis says Mother Teresa will enter sainthood September 4.

It is only fitting that Mother Teresa be made a saint in the year that Pope Francis declared as the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Mother Teresa will be made a saint on September 4th, 2016. The announcement was made by Pope Francis last Tuesday. Following the announcement, the Archbishop of Calcutta, Thomas D'Souza, conducted a special mass. The Missionaries of Charity sisters prayed at the Mother's tomb, at Kolkata (previously known as Calcutta). The canonization ceremony will be conducted at the Vatican.

Mother Teresa will be Declared a Saint September 4[/tweetthis]

Born to Nikollë and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa was baptized as Gonxha Agnes. She was born in the year 1910, at Skopje (modern Macedonia). After living there for 18 years, she moved to Ireland and joined the Sisters of Loreto at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Ireland. She left for India in the year 1929 and started her novitiate at a convent in Darjeeling, India. There she learned Bengali (one of the main spoken languages in Kolkata) and started teaching at the St. Teresa's School near to the convent.

On May 24, 1931, Mother Teresa took her first religious vows and adopted the name Sister Mary Teresa. It was while serving as a teacher at the Loreto Convent School in Entally, Kolkata, that she started focusing her attention on the poverty surrounding her in the state. Mother Teresa started her missionary work with the poor in the year 1948. She replaced her traditional Loreto habit with the now iconic blue-bordered cotton sari.

It was last year that Pope Francis announced that the Church would be declaring Mother Teresa as a saint. As right after the Church recognized a second miracle attributed to Mother. A man from Brazil who was afflicted with multiple brain tumors got healed after praying to Mother Teresa. The first miracle was that of a 30-year old Kolkata woman getting healed of her stomach tumor after praying to the Mother Teresa.

Both the miracles occurred after the death of Mother Teresa. In both the cases, no scientific healing explanations could be found by the Vatican committee. It was Pope John Paul II who approved the first miracle and paved the Mother's path to sainthood. He even waived the Church's mandatory five-year waiting period after the death of a person sainthood process rule.

Sister Christi, a senior sister at the Missionaries of Charity said that the canonization of Mother Teresa would help to spread Mother Teresa's message to serve the poor, better. Mother Teresa received a Nobel Peace Prize for her work in the year 1979. Mother Teresa died in the year 1997.

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