Thiruvananthapuram: The Holy Mass and the canonisation of Blessed Mother Teresa, who died in Calcutta on September 5, 1997, will start at 2.30 pm (IST) in St Peter’s Square and conclude by 6.30 pm on Sunday. The brief message on the Vatican site announces that “Pope Francis presides over Holy Mass and the Canonization of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, followed by the Marian prayer of the Angelus”. The elevation of the Nobel Peace Prize winner to Catholicism's celestial pantheon comes on the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death.
The canonization ceremony follows the readings (Liturgy of Word) and the Pope’s sermon, which form the first part of the Mass. The Mass will resume after the conclusion of canonization. Fr Paul Thelekad of the Syro-Malabar church said the precise nature of the proceedings would be available only after the official announcement. So is the case with the recall of the miracles and the testimony of the church officials, who scrutinized the evidence.
Cardinal Parolin will celebrate a thanksgiving Mass for the canonization at Saint Peter Basilica on September 5. Under Catholic canon law, the proclamation of a saint usually requires the candidate to have inspired two miracles - one allows beatification and the second clears the way to sainthood. In Teresa's case the first miracle, approved in 2002, involved the 1998 recovery of a Bengali woman, Monica Besra, from an ovarian tumour.
The second, recognised in December, relates to a Brazilian man, Marcílio Haddad Andrino, who claims to have suddenly woken up without pain in 2008 after his wife prayed to Teresa for relief from the agony caused by brain tumours. Andrino will attend Sunday's ceremony while Besra, 50, will mark the occasion at her home in the village of Nakor.
