Posted on 12/18/2015 5:17:10 PM PST by Kaslin
Vatican City (dpa) - Mother Teresa's path to sainthood was cleared Friday, after the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis had approved a decision to attribute a second miracle to the Catholic nun who dedicated her life to India's poor.
Italian bishops' newspaper Avvenire first reported Thursday, on Francis' 79th birthday, that the pontiff ratified the findings of the Vatican's saint-making committee on the miraculous healing of a man suffering from serious brain disease.
The patient from Santos, Brazil, was diagnosed with "viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses with triventricular hydrocephalus," Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the prelate steering Teresa's canonization, said in a separate statement.
He was taken comatose for emergency surgery on December 9, 2008. Half an hour later, a doctor "found the patient inexplicably awake and without pain," and exams the next day found him with no more symptoms of disease, Kolodiejchuk said.
The miracle was said to have happened after the man's wife, along with relatives, friends and her parish priest, addressed prayers to Teresa. Since the healing, the couple had two children, despite doctors thinking that treatment had made him sterile.
Miracle recognition is part of the Catholic Church's sanctification process.
A first one had already been attributed to Teresa in 2002, paving the way for her to be elevated to the rank of "blessed," but progress towards sainthood normally requires the acknowledgement of a second miracle.
Canonization is formalized in a Mass. Kolodiejchuk said the date should be announced at the next consistory - a meeting between the pope and cardinals - and Avvenire suggested it was very likely to fall on Sunday, September 4, 2016.
That would be the eve of Teresa's feast day, celebrated on the anniversary of her death, which took place in Kolkata, India, on September 5, 1997, when she was 87.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in what is today Macedonia, the ethnic Albanian Teresa took Indian citizenship. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 and gained worldwide recognition for her work, including a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
"We are very excited and happy," a spokeswoman for the Missionaries of Charities, Sister Christie, told dpa. "Celebrations will be prayers, more prayers, eventually an all-faith prayer will be held," Sunita Kumar, another spokeswoman for the order, told broadcaster NDTV.
The canonization process started in 1999, when Pope John Paul II decided to waive the five-year cooling-off period usually required after a would-be saint's death. Beatification, which granted her the title Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, came four years later.
Teresa is a revered figure throughout the world, but her speedy path to sainthood - in modern times, second only to John Paul II's, who made the grade in 2014 nine years after his death - has not been without its critics.
"It should be noted that her long time spiritual adviser was a serial predator, Jesuit Father Donald McGuire, who was criminally convicted," Barbara Blaine, President of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said Friday.
"When it is advantageous for Catholic officials to move quickly, like sainthood for popular figures Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, they move quickly. But when it is advantageous for church officials to move slowly, like the clergy sex cases, they move slowly," she added.
Previously, the late British-born polemicist Christopher Hitchens criticized Teresa's readiness to accept donations from dictators and her hardline views on abortion and contraception, while Indian rationalists questioned the veracity of her first recognized miracle.
Wow. This Pope finally got something right.
Would had expected him to deem Mohammed a Saint before this. Actually, won’t be shocked if he still does before Mother Terresa’s sainthood is finalized...
Teresa*
To me, the greatest poverty is that abortion: the fear of the child. The child must die; the child must be killed so that we don't have to feed one more child, we don't have to educate one more child. Terrible! Terrible! Mother could murder her own child! Terrible! It is the sign of great poverty. And so, open your eyes to come to know.Full text
If she is a believer in Christ she is already a saint....as are all believers.
Wow. This Pope finally got something right.
Yes, he got this one exactly right.
“He was taken comatose for emergency surgery on December 9, 2008. Half an hour later, a doctor “found the patient inexplicably awake and without pain,” and exams the next day found him with no more symptoms of disease, Kolodiejchuk said.”
“The miracle was said to have happened after the man’s wife, along with relatives, friends and her parish priest, addressed prayers to Teresa. Since the healing, the couple had two children, despite doctors thinking that treatment had made him sterile.”
Miracle inflation continues to devalue what constitutes a miracle. These days, they don’t have to actually be miracles.
This family prayed. No evidence Teresa can hear prayers. No evidence she could do anything about them. No evidence she did do anything about them. No evidence his condition would have improved anyway, regardless of who or what they prayed to.
As you noted, all believers who’ve entrusted themselves to Christ alone for salvation are addressed in Scripture as saints.
The rest is made up.
Note: Teresa was a wonderful, giving human. Let’s hope she ha entrusted herself to Christ alone during her life.
Well, right. Canonization doesn’t “make” you a saint. It just makes you canonized. That is to say, it recognizes and acknowledges a done deal.... done by God.
What is done by God to Mother Teresa that hasn’t been done to any other believer?
I love it when God shows his power and His favor for those who trust in Him, in this way.
"Beloved, pray for us." (1 Thessalonians 5:25)
Oh, God’s blessings are very abundant to all His beloved ones. Very abundant — and not just to Teresa, surely. Although I think it is wonderful that He has honored Teresa’s prayers is this manner.
“and ascertain that there was no humanly explicable or natural explanation for the manner of healing.”
This happens even when no one prays to a saint.
Nor does healing mean that dear Teresa heard, had the ability to answer, nor did so.
It is an assumption without foundation.
Christmastime blessings to you.
I thought she had already been canonized a few years ago
Unfortunately just believing in Christ does not make one a Saint. It takes a lot more than that. I believe in Christ but I am not a saint. I am a sinner like we all are.
Saints are sinners, too.
26In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27
Paul sees it a different way than you.
Have to pray to a human and give praise to a human instead of God Almighty who did the healing. I cannot agree with this.
All those who are saved are saints.
Apparently some on here think they are on her level. Ever hear the parable of the two sons asked to work in the vineyard?
One says he will, but doesn’t.
One says he won’t, but does.
Jesus asked which one did his father’s will.
It was no. 2!
In other words, just saying you believe, or believing doesn’t cut it. In other words, you have to do something, and that doesn’t put me on the same level as Mother Teresa either.
“Let’s hope that someday you will be appalled at how pert and smug you sound.”
Let’s hope fewer posters engage in mind-reading and making posts personal by judging the motives of other posters.
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