Pope Francis to canonize Mother Teresa, beloved as ‘Saint of the Gutters’

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Her appearance at the University of MA stadium in Amherst was at the invitation of the Newman Center there, the Fatima Apostolate and the Apostolate of the Suffering and Handicapped.

The path for the canonization of the beloved nun was cleared after Pope Francis recognized a second medical miracle attributed to her.

News of Mother Teresa receiving one of the Catholic church’s highest honors came on Francis’ 79th birthday.

Mother Teresa died at the age of 87 in Kolkata in 1997.

She arrived in India in 1929, taking her first vows in 1931 and the name Therése, after St Therese of Lisieux patron saint of missionaries. Brazilian Father Elmiran Ferreira Santos, pastor of Our Lady of Aparecida Parish in Sao Paulo, believes prayers to Blessed Teresa for a parishioner with brain tumors led to a possible miracle.

Of Albanian background, she was born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu at Skopje, Macedonia, in 1910.

Delhi’s Archbishop today welcomed the Vatican decision to elevate Mother Teresa to sainthood saying the move will bring hope to those dedicated to the service of the poor. “We are very happy”, said Sunita Kumar, a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charity in the eastern city of Kolkata (earlier called Calcutta), where Mother Teresa lived and worked.

Although no date has been set for the canonization, Italian media speculates it will take place next year on September 5 – the 19th anniversary of her death.

“We have now received an official confirmation from Vatican that a second miracle had been confirmed by the Church and that the Mother would be given sainthood”. Some Indian doctors at the time insisted she was cured by medicine — not a miracle — and expressed concern that belief in such events would turn the poor away from science when they fell ill.

“With her work, she was always the symbol of mercy, not just with words but with her actions”, said the superior general of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, the Rev. Sebastian Vazhakala. During his September 2014 visit to Albania, Francis confided to his interpreter that he was not only impressed by her fortitude, but in some ways feared it. By citizenship, an Indian.