The Vatican will hold a consistory on March 15 to approve the canonization of five men and women, including Blessed Teresa of Kolkata.
The meeting, also known as an “ordinary public consistory,” formally ends the process of approving a new saint.
Vatican observers expect that Blessed Teresa’s canonization will take place on Sept. 4, the day before the 19th anniversary of the nun’s death on Sept. 5, 1997.
Pope Francis approved on Dec. 17 a second miracle attributed to Blessed Teresa’s intercession. The miracle involved the healing of a now 42-year-old mechanical engineer in Santos, Brazil, who was in a coma after being diagnosed with a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple brain abscesses.
The Albania-born nun studied briefly in Rathfarnham, Dublin, when she was 18 before moving to India.
Mother Teresa was conferred the title Blessed in Rome, Italy, on Oct. 19, 2003, after Pope St. John Paul II recognized the miraculous healing of an Indian woman with a tumour in her abdomen.
Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu of Albanian parents on Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, in what is Macedonia today, Mother Teresa died in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, on Sept. 5, 1997.
Affectionately known as the “saint of the gutter” for her unconditional love for the poor, abandoned and the marginalized, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
Sources
Catholic News Service
Vatican Radio
The Irish Catholic
Image: The Irish Catholic