(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis sent a telegram to AsiaNews director and Pontifical Missionary priest, Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, on Friday, in acknowledgment of the work his organization has done in preparing and presenting a symposium on the life and legacy of Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, who is to be canonized a saint this Sunday, Sept. 4 th .
Below, please find the full text of the telegram, in English translation provided by AsiaNews
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Rev. Father Bernardo Cervellera
Editor of AsiaNews – PIME
On the occasion of the International Symposium dedicated to the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as an icon of Mercy for Asia and the world, organized by the AsiaNews agency, in the context of the special Jubilee of Mercy and the imminence of the canonization of religious, the Holy Father Pope Francis sends his cordial and good wishes, praying that the example of life of Blessed, as a privileged witness of charity and generous attention to the poor and to the least, help bring Christ increasingly to the center of life and to live of his Gospel freely in the continuous exercise of works of mercy, to be builders of a better future, illuminated by the splendor of the Truth.
His Holiness invokes the heavenly intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of all comfort to devotees of Mother Teresa, so that imitating her apostolic zeal, they can implement the Revolution of Tenderness begun by Jesus Christ with his special love to the little ones.
And while asking for your prayers in support of his Petrine ministry, he cordially imparts to you, the organizers, the speakers and to all present the implored Apostolic Blessing.
From the Vatican, September 2, 2016
Card. Pietro Parolin
Secretary of State of His Holiness
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Tens of thousands of faithful are expected to turn out for the canonization Sunday 4 September of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Founder of the religious order, Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa dedicated her life to helping the poorest of the poor, the sick, the dying and unloved. She received numerous awards for her work, including the Nobel peace prize in 1979. Mother Teresa died on September 5 th , 1997 at the age of 87. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003.
Missionaries of Charity Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk is postulator for her cause for Sainthood. He told Vatican Radio’s Tracey McClure “She was very gifted humanly speaking. She was intelligent, very practical, a born teacher, organizer… she sang, had a beautiful voice; she played the instrument, she wrote poetry. She had many gifts”
He added that Mother Teresa expected the four thousand sisters who now make up the order to be devoted to Jesus and to live a life of simplicity: “the sisters who joined were very talented doctors, nurses and others – but they were supposed to live simply as all the other sisters. And she herself did it.”
“She disguised the profundity of her holiness by the exterior simplicity of her life and of her words, even.”
“If I ever become a saint, I will surely be one of Darkness”
“If I ever become a saint, I will surely be one of Darkness,” Mother Teresa once said. She also believed she would be “absent from heaven.” Asked what she meant by this, Fr. Brian explained:
“I think it was Mother Teresa’s ‘mission statement’ of what she will be doing when she, as she used to say, ‘goes home to God.’ From the letters that we discovered [after her death] when we began collecting the documents that were published in “Mother Teresa Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta,” to the surprise, if not shock of everyone, even the sisters closest to Mother Teresa, we discovered that her interior experience was what she called “the Darkness” and that she is a woman passionately in love with Jesus.”
The shock was greatest because Mother Teresa’s seemingly never-ending energy and organizational skills had led everyone to believe she lived with the consoling knowledge of Jesus’ love for her.
Yet the letters revealed “that she is feeling unloved, unwanted by Jesus,” noted Fr. Brian. “She feels that she cannot love Jesus as she wants to love him: as he’s never been loved before – which is a daring resolution to even make if you’re taking it seriously.”
Fr. Brian recalled reading some of her correspondence to the sisters in the mother house in Calcutta, India who knew her well. “They were really crying because you were reading them and you know Mother, it’s your mother, and then you’re hearing this and you have a sense of how she’s suffering…”
Some of the most revealing of her letters were addressed directly to Jesus, to whom she described her agony over doubts about the strength of her faith and Jesus’ love for her.
She wrote, ‘I am willing to go through this for all eternity even if this is for your pleasure or if others can benefit from this, if it were possible’ explained Fr. Brian. “The magnanimity, the great soul in this is just tremendous: ‘I want to satiate your thirst with every drop of blood that you can find in me.’ So that’s why when you are reading this or hearing this, the sisters were crying in the mother house. If that’s not love for God, then I don’t know what is.”
Did Mother Teresa know she would be made a saint?
Asked what Mother Teresa would have said if she knew that she would indeed be made a saint, Fr. Brian answered:
“I think that she was innocent and pure but she wasn’t stupid or naive. So I think that she had a sense that…. You know, at a news conference, a journalist would ask: ‘Well Mother Teresa, why do you think people call you a living saint?’ And then, she would say, … ‘you or we shouldn’t be surprised if you see Jesus in me because it’s an obligation for all of us to be holy.’”
“I think she must have had some sense that she would be (made a saint) but that said, I think one of her other outstanding virtues is humility,” continued Fr. Brian. “Because she was one of the most admired women in the twentieth century – not just in the Church – not since St. Francis of Assisi has someone had that echo outside the Church. Of course we have other great saints but (who) has that echo? … Even in the culture, you’ll see in a movie or in a book or something, someone will say, ‘who do you think I am, Mother Teresa?’ There’s a sense that they just identify Mother Teresa with goodness, kindness, charity….”
The Miracle
The miraculous healing of Marcilio Haddad Andrino in 2008 in Brazil has been attributed to Mother Teresa’s intervention. Fr. Brain notes that Marcilio was “diagnosed as having a bacterial brain infection that led to multiple abscesses which led to hydrocephaly – water in the brain … his wife Fernanda began a novena to pray for his recovery.”
She kept praying through December 9 th , recounted Fr. Brian, when “he was in such extreme pain from all the pressure of water on the brain that he went into a coma. Basically, on that day he was dying. So they kept praying – a doctor wanted to do an operation to drain the liquid and they couldn’t do it the normal way because there was a problem in the throat and the anesthesiologist was afraid to do it. Around 6:00, Marcilio was in the operating room, and around 6.10 pm the doctor left to try to find I think the endocrinologist or someone to do it in another way.”
When the doctor returned to the operating room at about 6:40 pm, Fr. Brian explained, “Marcilio who was already in a deep coma, 3 on the Glasgow scale – 15 is conscious and 3 is like near death – and then [suddenly], Marcilio is awake, no pain, and he looks around the operating room and says, ‘what am I doing here?’ At that time, his wife was also praying intensely.”
Neurosurgeons in Brazil and Rome who examined Marcilio’s before and after brain scans were dumbfounded: they “said there’s no way you can go from here to here,” Fr. Brian added. The doctor who treated Marcilio said of the thirty patients in his care for the same condition, Marcilio is the only one to have ever survived.
The “side” miracle, Fr. Brian says, is the fact that Marcilio and his wife, who had been told they would never be able to have kids, discovered that Fernanda was pregnant and would have two children.
Listen to Tracey McClure’s interview with Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuck:
(from Vatican Radio)…
More than 100,000
faithful are expected to gather in St Peter’s Square on Sunday morning, 4
September, for the canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, which will be
presided over by Pope Francis. The celebration, which is one of the key moments
of the Holy Year of Mercy, will also have the attention of the media, as it
will be followed by 600 journalists from around the world and 125 television
correspondents. Details and information
about the ceremony were presented in a briefing on Friday, 2 August, in the
Holy See Press Office. Director Greg Burke ensured the highest level of Vatican
media coverage for the event. Live coverage of the event will be offered by
Vatican Radio, which will broadcast in six languages, as well as in Albanian.
Live coverage will also be provided on Monday morning, 5 September, Mother
Teresa’s first feast day, when Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State,
celebrates a Mass of thanksgiving in St Peter’s Square. In collaboration with
mc360Photo, the Secretariat for Communications will implement the project “I
was there”, a high resolution panoramic shot of the Square, which will allow
you to zoom in on the face of each individual present. Regarding the television
coverage of the event, Stefano D’Agostini, Director of the Vatican Television
Center, explained that footage will be captured in 4K Ultra HD, which is also
the modern standard for material storage. Nine cameras will be used in the
Square, with special shots taken from above, to show the size of the crowd
gathered in the scope of Bernini’s Colonnade. Images will be broadcast for the
world to see, and high definition streaming will also be available in America
and Asia. The briefing also included the
participation of Sr Mary Prema Pierick, Superior General of the Missionaries of
Charity, Marcilio Haddad Andrino, who was healed from a severe form of
hydrocephalus through Mother Teresa’s intercession, a miracle which was
decisive for the canonization, and Fr Brian Kolodiejchuk, Superior General of
the Missionaries of Charity Fathers and postulator of the Cause….
(Vatican Radio) “Praying for creation or praying with creation?” that was the question posed by the preacher of the Papal Household, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa at Vespers on Thursday evening.
Against the majestic backdrop of St Peter’s Basilica and with Pope Francis looking on, Fr Cantalamessa told those present that “God did not program creation as if it were a clock or a computer in which every movement is programmed from the beginning, except, he added, maybe for some periodic updates.”
The Papal Preacher underlined that the primary duty of human beings toward creation was to lend it a voice, adding that the sovereignty of human beings over the cosmos does not entail the triumphalism of our species, but the assumption of responsibility toward the weak, the poor, the defenseless.
He also referred to the Holy Father’s encyclical on the environment Laudato Si which looks at the relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet and asks, “what is it that produces the greatest damage to the environment and simultaneously the misery of a great number of people if not the insatiable desire of some to increase their possessions and their profits disproportionately?”
During his homily, the Priest posed a question that people have been asking since last week’s massive earthquake in central Italy. “Where was God on the night of August 23,”. He answered by saying the believer does not hesitate, to respond to the question with humility.
“He was there, suffering with his creatures and receiving into his peace the victims who were knocking at the door of his Paradise.”
Returning his main theme, Fr Cantalamessa said, if Francis of Assisi still has something to say to us today about the environment, it is precisely this. “He does not pray “for” creation, for its preservation instead he prays “with” creation or “because of creation”.
It is a message, he concluded that “is also taken up by the Holy Father in his encyclical on the environment. It begins with “Laudato si’” and ends significantly with two distinct prayers: one “for” creation and the other “in union with” creation
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The program for Pope’s Francis’ visit to the Italian hilltop town of Assisi was released in the Vatican on Thursday. During his one-day visit the Pope will be taking part in the closing of an interreligious World Day of Prayer for Peace, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio. His latest pilgrimage to Assisi marks the 30th anniversary of the First World Day of Prayer for Peace that St. John Paul convened in the birthplace of St. Francis, back in 1986.
Pope Francis’ presence at the interreligious prayer summit on September 20th will mark his second visit to the birthplace of his namesake in less than two months.
Listen to the report by Susy Hodges:
Please see details of his programme below:
10.30 Departure from Vatican City’s Helicopter Pad
11.05 Landing at Assisi’s Migaghelli Sports Field near the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels.
Pope Francis will be greeted by Bishop Domenico Sorrentino of Assisi and the local authorities
11.30 Arrival at the Holy Convent of Assisi
The Pope will be greeted by:
Father Mauro Gambetti, Custodian of the Holy Convent, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, a Muslim reprepresentative, Dr Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Syro-Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Efrem II, a Jewish representative and the Supreme Head of Tendai Buddhism (Japan)
They then move to the Cloister of Sixtus IV where the representatives of Christian denominations and World Religions are waiting.
12.00 The Holy Father greets all the representatives one by one.
13.00 Lunch together in the refectory of the Holy Cnvent that also will be attended by several war victims.
15.15 Pope Francis meets individually with the following:
Bartholomew I, a Muslim representative, Archbishop Justin Welby, Patriarch Efrem II and a Jewish representative.
16.00 Prayers for Peace
ECUMENICAL PRAYER OF CHRISTIANS taking place in different places in the Lower Basilica of St. Francis
17.00 All the participants exit from the Lower Basilica and meet with the Representatives of other religions who have prayed in different places and they move to the podium in the Square.
17.17 CLOSING CEREMONY in St. Francis Square
Greeting by Bishop Domenico Sorrentino.
Messages read by:
A testimony from a victim of war, Patriarch Bartholomew I, a Muslim representative, a Jewish representative, Japanese Buddhist Patriarch, Professor Andrea Riccardi, Founder of the Sant’Egidio Community, address by Pope Francis, Letter appealing for peace that will be handed to children in various countries, a moment of silence for the victims of war, the signing of an Appeal for Peace and the lighting of two candles, exchanging the sign of peace
18.30 Pope Francis leaves by car for the St. Mary of the Angels Heliport.
19.30 Arrival at the Vatican City Heliport.
(from Vatican Radio)…