(Vatican Radio) At the conclusion of the Mass in which he canonized Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pope Francis led the faithful in the customary Sunday recitation of the Angelus. In remarks ahead of the Marian prayer, the Holy Father greeted and thanked all those who took part in the day’s celebrations, especially those most closely attached to St Teresa. He also thanked the various dignitaries in attendance, as well as the pilgrims who had come from all over the world. Pope Francis spoke in a special way to the many volunteers present, who are in Rome to celebrate the Jubilee for Volunteers and Workers of Mercy. In this context the Pope remembered especially those who offer their service in “difficult and risky” situations. He recalled Sister Isabel, a Spanish missionary sister who was killed last week in Haiti, as well as other religious sisters who have suffered violence in recent days. The full text of Pope Francis’ prepared remarks for the Angelus can be found below: Dear brothers and sisters, While we prepare to conclude this celebration, I want to greet and thank all of you who have taken part: First of all, the Missionaries of Charity, who are the spiritual family of Mother Teresa. Your holy Foundress always watches over your journey and obtains for you the ability to be faithful to God, to the Church, and to the poor. With grateful deference I greet all the high Authorities present, in particular those coming from countries joined most closely to the figure of the new Saint, as well as the official delegations and the numerous pilgrims who have come from so many countries on this happy occasion. May God bless your nations. And with affection I greet all of you, dear volunteers and workers of mercy. I entrust you to the protection of Mother Teresa: May she teach you to contemplate and adore each day Jesus Crucified in order to recognize Him and serve Him in our brothers and sisters in need. Let us ask this grace also for all those who are united to us through the media in every part of the world. In this moment I want to recall the many people who spend themselves in service to their brothers and sisters in difficult and risky situations. I think especially of the many religious women who give their lives without sparing. Let us pray in particular for the Spanish missionary sister, Sister Isabel, who was killed two days ago in the capital of Haiti, a country that has been sorely tried, and for which I hope for an end to such acts of violence and for greater security for all. Let us also remember other Sisters who have recently suffered violence in other countries. Let us do this by turning in prayer to the Virgin Mary, Mother and Queen of all the saints. (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday celebrated the Rite of Canonization for Mother Teresa of Calcutta, at a Solemn Mass offered in St Peter’s Square. During his homily, the Holy Father said, “Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defence of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded.” To the many volunteers in Rome for the Jubilee for Volunteers and Workers of Mercy, Pope Francis offered St Teresa of Calcutta as a “model of holiness.” Below, please find the full text of Pope Francis’ prepared homily for the Mass for the Canonization of St Teresa of Calcutta: Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis
Holy Mass and Rite of Canonization of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Saint Peter’s Square, 4 September 2016 “Who can learn the counsel of God?” ( Wis 9:13). This question from the Book of Wisdom that we have just heard in the first reading suggests that our life is a mystery and that we do not possess the key to understanding it. There are always two protagonists in history: God and man. Our task is to perceive the call of God and then to do his will. But in order to do his will, we must ask ourselves, “What is God’s will in my life?” We find the answer in the same passage of the Book of Wisdom: “People were taught what pleases you” ( Wis 9:18). In order to ascertain the call of God, we must ask ourselves and understand what pleases God. On many occasions the prophets proclaimed what was pleasing to God. Their message found a wonderful synthesis in the words “I want mercy, not sacrifice” ( Hos 6:6; Mt 9:13). God is pleased by every act of mercy, because in the brother or sister that we assist, we recognize the face of God which no one can see (cf. Jn 1:18). Each time we bend down to the needs of our brothers and sisters, we give Jesus something to eat and drink; we clothe, we help, and we visit the Son of God (cf. Mt 25:40). We are thus called to translate into concrete acts that which we invoke in prayer and profess in faith. There is no alternative to charity: those who put themselves at the service of others, even when they don’t know it, are those who love God (cf. 1 Jn 3:16-18; Jas 2:14-18). The Christian life, however, is not merely extending a hand in times of need. If it is just this, it can be, certainly, a lovely expression of human solidarity which offers immediate benefits, but it is sterile because it lacks roots. The task which the Lord gives us, on the contrary, is the vocation to charity in which each of Christ’s disciples puts his or her entire life at his service, so to grow each day in love. We heard in the Gospel, “Large crowds were travelling with Jesus” ( Lk 14:25). Today, this “large crowd” is seen in the great number of volunteers who have come together for the Jubilee of Mercy. You are that crowd who follows the Master and who makes visible his concrete love for each person. I repeat to you the words of the Apostle Paul: “I have indeed received much joy and comfort from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you” ( Philem 1:7). How many hearts have been comforted by volunteers! How many hands they have held; how many tears they have wiped away; how much love has been poured out in hidden, humble and selfless service! This praiseworthy service gives voice to the faith and expresses the mercy of the Father, who draws near to those in need. Following Jesus is a serious task, and, at the same time, one filled with joy; it takes a certain daring and courage to recognize the divine Master in the poorest of the poor and to give oneself in their service. In order to do so, volunteers, who out of love of Jesus serve the poor and the needy, do not expect any thanks or recompense; rather they renounce all this because they have discovered true love. Just as the Lord has come to meet me and has stooped down to my level in my hour of need, so too do I go to meet him, bending low before those who have lost faith or who live as though God did not exist, before young people without values or ideals, before families in crisis, before the ill and the imprisoned, before refugees and immigrants, before the weak and defenceless in body and spirit, before abandoned children, before the elderly who are on their own. Wherever someone is reaching out, asking for a helping hand in order to get up, this is where our presence – and the presence of the Church which sustains and offers hope – must be. Mother Teresa, in all aspects of her life, was a generous dispenser of divine mercy, making herself available for everyone through her welcome and defence of human life, those unborn and those abandoned and discarded. She was committed to defending life, ceaselessly proclaiming that “the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable”. She bowed down before those who were spent, left to die on the side of the road, seeing in them their God-given dignity; she made her voice heard before the powers of this world, so that they might recognize their guilt for the crime of poverty they created. For Mother Teresa, mercy was the “salt” which gave flavour to her work, it was the “light” which shone in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering. Her mission to the urban and existential peripheries remains for us today an eloquent witness to God’s closeness to the poorest of the poor. Today, I pass on this emblematic figure of womanhood and of consecrated life to the whole world of volunteers: may she be your model of holiness! May this tireless worker of mercy help us to increasingly understand that our only criterion for action is gratuitous love, free from every ideology and all obligations, offered freely to everyone without distinction of language, culture, race or religion. Mother Teresa loved to say, “Perhaps I don’t speak their language, but I can smile”. Let us carry her smile in our hearts and give it to those whom we meet along our journey, especially those who suffer. In this way, we will open up opportunities of joy and hope for our many brothers and sisters who are discouraged and who stand in need of understanding and tenderness. (from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) During the Canonization Mass for Blessed Mother Teresa, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato presented a brief biography of the Church’s newest Saint in the presence of Pope Francis.
Below is an English language translation of the address of Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints
This humble nun, to whom countless numbers of people turn, affectionately calling her “Mother Teresa”, is the Blessed Soul we are presenting to your Holiness today so that, with her wished-for canonization, the whole world may contemplate her, ask her intercession, and imitate her in charitable works.
Throughout her life, following the example of Christ the Good Samaritan, she was always close to anyone she encountered who was in need, sharing in the suffering of those who live on the extreme outskirts of society and witnessing to God’s boundless love for His people.
I would like to present briefly the salient points of her life:
Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26th 1910 in Skopje, to a family of Albanian origin. As an adolescent she became ever more active in her parish while her vocation to give herself totally to the Lord grew. Leaving her family, she was received as a Postulant in the convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Sisters of Loreto in Rathfarnam, near Dublin.
Sent to Darjeeling, in India, at the end of her novitiate, she made her final profession and took the name of Teresa. She served as a teacher and spent 17 years at Saint Mary’s Bengali Medium School, near Calcutta.
While travelling by train from Calcutta to Darjeeling, she received what she defined as “the call within the call”: an intuition to begin a religious institute that would “satisfy the infinite thirst of Jesus on the Cross for love and for souls by working for the salvation and the sanctification of the poorest of the poor”.
So she founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Charity, to which she later added the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers, lay organizations and the Movement open to the diocesan priesthood.
Mother Teresa was tireless, dedicating herself completely to announcing the Gospel through various charitable and aid works to the needy, with no distinction of rank, religion or race. At the heart of all her initiatives she placed the daily celebration of the Holy Mass, Eucharistic Adoration, prayer, and a great spirit of universal love that inspired her to see and serve Jesus in the poor.
Her heroic evangelical witness won the admiration of the highest authorities in the Church and the world. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Physically exhausted, but always strong in spirit, she died peacefully in Calcutta on September 5th 1997, enveloped in an immense, solid and unanimous odour of sanctity.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is offering Neapolitan pizza to 1,500 people which will be served Sunday afternoon in the atrium of the Paul VI Hall following the canonization of Mother Teresa. Invitees are the poor and needy, especially from the houses of the Sisters of Mother Teresa. They come from all over Italy including Milan, Bologna, Florence, Naples and all the houses in Rome. The lunch guests traveled at night in coaches to attend the lunch which will be served by around 250 Sisters of Mother Teresa, 50 Brothers of the congregation for men and other volunteers. Those attending the lunch have also been invited to attend the Canonization Mass. (from Vatican Radio)…
“We are grateful to God and to Pope Francis, who proclaimed the Year of mercy and chose Mother Teresa as an ‘icon of mercy’. Mother Teresa’s canonization is an opportunity to spread the message of the Gospel and God’s mercy: we hope that the grace of mercy reaches every human being, especially the poorest and most desperate”: says says Sister Mary Prema Pierick, Superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, on the eve of the celebration to be held on September 4 at the Vatican, where Mother Teresa will be proclaimed a saint.
The Superior, a 63-year-old German religious, speaking to Agenzia Fides notes that “the message and work of Mother Teresa is fully present and will exist until there is a suffering humanity, humiliated, outcast in the world”. Her work today “continues thanks to the Missionaries of Charity, the Brothers of Charity (priests) but also to all men and women of good will who continue to serve the poor, the marginalized, the dying, becoming tools in the hands of God and his mercy”.
The life of the Sisters is “a life of prayer and service to those in need, in the knowledge that in them Christ is present in our midst”. “Mother Teresa – she concludes – acknowledged Christ in the poor and for this reason the poor are central to her mission. Mercy was for her a way of life, made of love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion toward all”.
According to data provided by Sister Prema, there are 5,160 Missionaries of Charity in the world today, present in 139 countries with a total of 758 between homes and institutions. Whereas 397 priests of the “Brothers of Charity”, work in 69 houses, scattered in 21 countries around the world.
Source: Fides News Agency
(from Vatican Radio)…