Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint

We’ve known for a while that this was coming, but it’s so sweet to see it actually happen!

Mother Teresa, who was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in what is now Macedonia, was proclaimed a saint nearly 19 years to the day after her death in 1997.

Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint at the Vatican on Sunday, conferring the Catholic Church’s highest honor onto the diminutive nun who devoted her life to serving India’s destitute. He repeated that line again, emphasizing a point that he has made numerous times as pope: “The crimes of poverty they themselves created”. He told the crowd: “May she be your model of holiness”.

Following the ceremony Francis arranged for pizza makers from Naples to prepare lunch in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall for 1,500 of Italy’s poor which would be served by 250 Missionaries of Charity.

Applause erupted in St. Peter’s Square even before Francis finished pronouncing the rite of canonization at the start of the Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

Francis has been dedicated to ministering to society’s most marginal, from prostitutes to prisoners, refugees to the homeless.

“Tomorrow we will have the joy of seeing Mother Teresa proclaimed a saint”, the Argentinian pontiff said yesterday.

Pope Francis then delivered a homily, in which he praised Mother Teresa – “this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life” – for her charitable work.

She began Missionaries of Charity in 1950 with just 12 nuns.

The sisters of the Order, who don’t watch TV or use mobile phones, made an exception as they all remained glued to specially-arranged large screens.

Nonetheless, Mother Teresa faced numerous hardships during her life, most notably, she spends the majority of her life believing God “had abandoned her”, and as such, had a long period of spiritual agony. To those of us fortunate enough to live in the world with her at the same time, who are better because of her earthly, tangible witness of compassion and mercy, the frail, stooped woman will always remain Mother Teresa.

His formal declaration marks a highlight for Pope Francis’ Jubilee Year of Mercy, in which he recognizes the nun as an icon of mercy.

Sister Leandra Stupnicka, a nun from Wroclaw in Poland, said she got up at 4:00 a.m.to be at the Vatican early on Sunday and pay her respects to the new saint.

Security fears in the wake of Islamic State (Isis) attacks in Europe meant only 100,000 tickets were issued for the mass, compared to the 300,000 in attendance for Mother Teresas beatification in 2003.

1937: Takes final vows and the name Mother Teresa. Surely to them Mother Teresa must be a saint? The three most public speeches of her career-her acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, her Harvard Commencement address, and her words at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC-all focused on abortion as the world’s number one social evil, earning her the undying opprobrium of the Left.

She achieved worldwide acclaim for her work in Kolkata’s slums, but her critics accused her of pushing a hardline Catholicism, mixing with dictators and accepting funds from them for her charity.