Posted on 08/26/2007 2:55:47 PM PDT by Salvation
London, Aug. 25 (PTI): A day after it was revealed that Mother Teresa had a deep crisis of faith in God for the last four decades of her life, the Vatican has said that her path to sainthood will not be affected by the controversy.
"Mother Teresa has already been beatified. For her canonisation as a saint, she now requires one more verified miracle," 'The Daily Telegraph' reported here today, quoting Monsignor Robert Sarno, in charge of her case at Congregation for the Causes of Saints, as saying.
The 'Saint of the Gutter', who died on September 5, 1997, nine days after her 87th birthday, is likely be canonised as a saint by the Vatican later this year. Admitting that Mother Teresa had, at times, turned away from God, Mgr Sarno said, "It's really very simple. People have to realise that the Church does not canonise God. She was a human being... she faced reality. Even the saints are faced with the difficulties of life."
The Vatican has more than 35,000 pages of documents attesting to the virtues and shortcomings of Mother Teresa. Mgr Sarno said he had to close the investigation because of the enormous amount of evidence that poured from Mother Teresa's supporters. "Over 100 witnesses, far more than in any other case for sainthood, have testified."
According to some of the letters within her file, Mother Teresa began to struggle with her belief in God at roughly the same time as she started caring for the poor and sick in Kolkata in 1949.
The Catholic Association of Bengal, the largest lay organisation in Calcutta, has mounted a constant prayer for the last two weeks to push her cause forward at Rome. It has also nominated 2007 as the 'Year of Mother Teresa's Sainthood', since Sept 5 will mark her 10th death anniversary.
**”I am assailed by the worst temptations of atheism,” **
True of St. Therese of Lisieux and true also, of many others.
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September 5, 2007
![]() Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
![]() (1910-1997)
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order she founded in 1950 as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers and an order of priests.
Speaking in a strained, weary voice at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II declared her blessed, prompting waves of applause before the 300,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. In his homily, read by an aide for the aging pope, the Holy Father called Mother Teresa one of the most relevant personalities of our age and an icon of the Good Samaritan. Her life, he said, was a bold proclamation of the gospel. Mother Teresa's beatification, just over six years after her death, was part of an expedited process put into effect by Pope John Paul II. Like so many others around the world, he found her love for the Eucharist, for prayer and for the poor a model for all to emulate. Born to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje, Macedonia (then part of the Ottoman Empire), Gonxha (Agnes) Bojaxhiu was the youngest of the three children who survived. For a time, the family lived comfortably, and her father's construction business thrived. But life changed overnight following his unexpected death. During her years in public school Agnes participated in a Catholic sodality and showed a strong interest in the foreign missions. At age 18 she entered the Loreto Sisters of Dublin. It was 1928 when she said goodbye to her mother for the final time and made her way to a new land and a new life. The following year she was sent to the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling, India. There she chose the name Teresa and prepared for a life of service. She was assigned to a high school for girls in Calcutta, where she taught history and geography to the daughters of the wealthy. But she could not escape the realities around herthe poverty, the suffering, the overwhelming numbers of destitute people. In 1946, while riding a train to Darjeeling to make a retreat, Sister Teresa heard what she later explained as a call within a call. The message was clear. I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. She also heard a call to give up her life with the Sisters of Loreto and, instead, to follow Christ into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor. After receiving permission to leave Loreto, establish a new religious community and undertake her new work, she took a nursing course for several months. She returned to Calcutta, where she lived in the slums and opened a school for poor children. Dressed in a white sari and sandals (the ordinary dress of an Indian woman) she soon began getting to know her neighborsespecially the poor and sickand getting to know their needs through visits. The work was exhausting, but she was not alone for long. Volunteers who came to join her in the work, some of them former students, became the core of the Missionaries of Charity. Other helped by donating food, clothing, supplies, the use of buildings. In 1952 the city of Calcutta gave Mother Teresa a former hostel, which became a home for the dying and the destitute. As the Order expanded, services were also offered to orphans, abandoned children, alcoholics, the aging and street people. For the next four decades Mother Teresa worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor. Her love knew no bounds. Nor did her energy, as she crisscrossed the globe pleading for support and inviting others to see the face of Jesus in the poorest of the poor. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On September 5, 1997, God called her home. |
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