Mother Teresa
Copyright Michael D. Robbins 2005
Astro-Rayological
Interpretation & Charts
Quotes
Biography
Iimages and Physiognomic Interpretations
Mother Teresa—Nun, Humanitarian
August 27, 1910, Skopje, Yugoslavia, 2:25 PM, MET (Source: Astrologicshe Auskunftsbogen) Another time given is 4:48 AM, MET. Died, September 5, 1997, Calcutta, India.
There are many potential problems with the accuracy of this chart as the quotation from Lois Rodden below reveals:
“Marcello Borges quotes the photo-bio "Faith and Compassion, The Life and Works of Mother Teresa," in Portuguese by Raghu Rai and Navin Chawle, Element Books. Chawle is a civil servant in India and had close contact with the nun. On p.22, "Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born 26 August 1910 in Skopje. The date is often given as August 27, which is the date she was baptized."
Astrolog quotes Astrol Auskunfsbogen for August 27, 1910, 2:25 PM MET. Helen Adams Garret gives August 26 (with 4:58 AM MET, no source) in the ISAR Emailleter Vol.41.
As Yugoslovia was on the Julian calendar, the question remains of whether the date is OS or NS.”
(Ascendant Sagittarius; MC, Libra; Sun and Mars in Virgo; Moon and Pluto in Gemini; Mercury and Jupiter in Libra; Venus in Leo; Saturn in Taurus; Uranus in Capricorn; Neptune in Cancer)
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, after devoting her life to the poor and sick in India
MOTHER TERESA
Blessed Teresa
Agnes Gonxha BojaxhiuBe faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
(Sun in Virgo)Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
(Jupiter in Libra conjunct MC. Venus in Leo in 8th house square Saturn. Chiron in Pisces.)Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.
Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
Good works are links that form a chain of love.
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much.
I think I'm more difficult than critical.
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.
It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy.
It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
Jesus said love one another. He didn't say love the whole world.
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.
(Virgo Sun)Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action.
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
Peace begins with a smile.
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.
The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.
The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.
There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.
There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.
We are all pencils in the hand of God.
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
Mother Teresa (1985)
Born August 26, 1910
Uskub, Ottoman Empire
Died September 5, 1997 (age 87)
Kolkata, India (officially: Blessed Teresa, born: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu ['agn?s gon'?a b?'ja?ju] (August 26, 1910 – September 5, 1997), Bharat Ratna, OM, was an Albanian Roman Catholic who founded the Missionaries of Charity and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work.Agnes was born on 26 August[1], 1910, in the centre of Uskub, in the Kosovo Province of the Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, Republic of Macedonia). Her parents were Albanians: Nikollë and Dranafille Bojaxhiu, her father originally from Mirëdita (North Albania) and her mother from Ðakovica(Gjakovë). Raised as a Catholic by her parents, her father died when she was only 7 years old.[2] During her early years, she was fascinated with stories of missionary life and service. She had knowledge of help offered at different sites, and was able to point at them on a map. She decided she would become a nun at the age of 18, at which time she left her house and joined the Sisters of Loreto. In 1928 she forgot life as she knew it, and never set eyes on family members (including her mother) again.
's Home for the Dying in Kolkata (Calcutta). on Macedonian stamp.
The beginnings of the Missionaries of Charity
On October 7, 1950, Teresa received Vatican permission to start a diocesan congregation, which would become the Missionaries of Charity, whose mission was to care for (in her own words) "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; today it has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, and charity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.In 1952, the first Home for the Dying was opened in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). She soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). An orphanage followed. The order soon began to attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened hospices, orphanages, and leper houses all over India. She was one of the first to establish homes for AIDS victims.
Teresa's order started to grow rapidly, with new homes opening all over the globe. The order's first house outside India was in Venezuela, and others followed in Rome and Tanzania, and eventually in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe, including her native Albania.
By the early 1970s, Mother Teresa had become an international celebrity. Her fame can be in large part attributed to the 1969 documentary Something Beautiful for God which was filmed by Malcolm Muggeridge and his 1971 book of the same title, which is still in print. During the filming of the documentary, footage taken in poor lighting conditions, particularly the Home for the Dying, was thought unlikely to be of usable quality by the crew. After returning from India, however, the footage was found to be extremely well lit. Muggeridge claimed this was a miracle of "divine light" from Mother Teresa herself. Others in the crew thought it more likely ascribable to a new type of Kodak film. Muggeridge later converted to Catholicism.
President Ronald Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony, 1985.In 1971, Paul VI awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. Other awards bestowed upon her included a Kennedy Prize (1971), the Balzan prize (1979) for humanity, peace and brotherhood among peoples, the Albert Schweitzer International Prize (1975), the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (1985) and Congressional Gold Medal (1994), honorary citizenship of the United States (November 16, 1996), and honorary degrees from a number of universities. In 1972, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nehru Prize for her promotion of international peace and understanding.In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace." She refused the conventional ceremonial banquet given to laureates, and asked that the $6,000 funds be diverted to the poor in Calcutta, claiming the money would permit her to feed hundreds of needy for a year. She is stated to have said that earthly rewards were important only if they helped her help the world's needy. When Mother Teresa received the prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" Her answer was simple: "Go home and love your family." In the same year, she was also awarded the Balzan prize for promoting peace and brotherhood among the nations.
In 1982, Mother Teresa persuaded Israelis and Palestinians, who were in the midst of a skirmish, to cease fire long enough to rescue 37 mentally handicapped patients from a besieged hospital in Beirut.
When the walls of Eastern Europe collapsed, she expanded her efforts to communist countries that had rejected her, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce saying, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work."
Mother Teresa travelled to help the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia.
In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her native region and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania.
By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from 12 to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world. The first Missionaries of Charity home in the United States was established in the South Bronx, New York.
Spiritual life
Analyzing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: "Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart."[3]In his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI mentioned Teresa of Calcutta three times and he also used her life to clarify one of his main points of the encyclical. "In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service."
A Franciscan influence
Although there was no direct connection between Mother Teresa's order and the Franciscan orders, she was known as a great admirer of St. Francis of Assisi.[4] Accordingly, her influence and life show influences of Franciscan spirituality.Her sisters say the peace prayer of St. Francis every morning before breakfast and many of the vows and emphasis of her ministry are similar. St. Francis emphasized poverty, chastity, obedience and submission to Christ. He also devoted much of his own life to service of the poor, especially lepers in the area where he lived.
Deteriorating health and death
In 1983, Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received a pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she had further heart problems.She offered to resign her position as head of the order. A secret ballot vote was carried out, and all the nuns, except herself, voted for Mother Teresa to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the Missionaries of Charity.
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. Later that year, in August, she suffered from malaria, and failure of the left heart ventricle. She underwent heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997 she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5, 1997, just 9 days after her 87th birthday. (News of her death was overshadowed by publicity for the funeral of Princess Diana on September 6, 1997.)
The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalized with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil.[5]
At the time of her death, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, an associated brotherhood of 300 members, and over 100,000 lay volunteers, operating 610 missions in 123 countries. These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.
Mother Teresa was granted a full state funeral by the Indian Government, an honor normally given to presidents and prime ministers, in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India. Her death was widely considered a great tragedy within both secular and religious communities. The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, for example, said: "She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world." Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that Mother Teresa was "a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity."
Influence in the world
with Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandrann and J&K Chief Minister Farook Abdullah.Mother Teresa's work inspired other Catholics to affiliate themselves with her order. The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, and the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests [6], and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers to combine the beauty of the vocation of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial priesthood[7]. Today over one million workers worldwide volunteer for the Missionaries of Charity.During her lifetime and after her death, Mother Teresa was consistently found by Gallup to be the single most widely admired person, and in 1999 was ranked as the "most admired person of the 20th century." Notably, Mother Teresa out-polled all other volunteered answers by a wide margin, and was in first place in all major demographic categories except the very young.
Miracle and beatification
Following Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization, or sainthood. This process requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing of a tumor in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, following the application of a locket containing Teresa's picture. Monica Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor.The issue of the alleged miracle proved controversial in India around the time of Mother Teresa's beatification.[8] Teresa was formally beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003 with the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. A second miracle is required for her to proceed to canonization.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Besra's husband initially said that the tumor was cured by medical treatment. He is quoted as saying: "This miracle is a hoax. It is much ado about nothing. My wife was cured by the doctors." He later changed his mind, however, and told an interviewer: "It was her miracle healing that cured my wife. Our situation was terrible and we didn't know what to do. Now my children are being educated with the help of the nuns and I have been able to buy a small piece of land. Everything has changed for the better."[9] According to Monica Besra in TIME Asia,[10] records of her treatment were removed by a member of the order from the hospital and are now with a nun.
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens, wrote that Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that "her intention was not to help people", and he alleged that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions. Hitchens was the only witness called by the Vatican to give evidence against Mother Teresa's beatification and canonization process, as the Vatican had abolished the traditional "devil's advocate" role that filled a similar purpose.[13][14]Mother Teresa made some public statements regarding political leaders that have produced controversy even in Catholic media, including her friendships and connections with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's and Haitian strongman Jean-Claude Duvalier.
Robin Fox
In 1994, Dr. Robin Fox, then editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, visited the Home for Dying Destitute in Calcutta and described the medical care the patients received as "haphazard".[15] Dr. Fox criticised Teresa, claiming that her order did not distinguish between curable and incurable patients, putting curable patients at risk. He observed that the staff re-used hypodermic needles after merely washing, but not sterilizing, them.Aroup Chatterjee
Aroup Chatterjee stated that none of the eight facilities that the Missionaries of Charity run in Papua New Guinea have residents living there; their sole use is converting people to Catholicism. He also questioned the number of people who Mother Teresa claims to help at her facilities.Other has garnered criticism for her encouragement of sacramental baptisms being performed on the dying (a majority of whom were Hindus and Muslims), thus converting them to the Catholic faith [citation needed]. In a speech at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California in January 1992, she said, "Something very beautiful... not one has died without receiving the special ticket for St. Peter, as we call it. We call baptism 'a ticket for St. Peter.' We ask the person, do you want a blessing by which your sins will be forgiven and you receive God? They have never refused. So 29,000 have died in that one house [in Kalighat] from the time we began in 1952." Critics argue that this attitude is contradictory to the Missionaries of Charity oft-stated principle to help others regardless of religious beliefs.[citation needed]
The Catholic Church's response to criticism
In the process of examining Teresa's suitability for beatification and canonization, the Roman Curia (the Vatican) pored over a great deal of documentation of published and unpublished criticisms against her life and work. Vatican officials say Hitchens' allegations have been investigated by the agency charged with such matters, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and they found no obstacle to Mother Teresa's canonization.[16] Due to the attacks she has received, some Catholic writers have called her a sign of contradiction. [2]
Commemoration
Memorial plaque dedicated to Mother Teresa at a building in Václavské námestí in Olomouc, Czech Republic.
Memorial Museum of Mother Teresa
A memorial room (museum) was opened in the Feudal Tower in Skopje, a building in which she used to play as a child. The museum has a significant selection of objects from Mother Teresa's life in Skopje and relics from her later life. In the Memorial room there is a model of her family home, made by the artist Vojo Georgievski.Next to the Memorial room, there is an area with the image of Mother Teresa and her prayer as well as a memorial park and a fountain.
Memorial plaque where Mother Teresa's home stood
Just at the edge of Skopje's city mall is the place where the house of Mother Teresa used to stand. The memorial plaque was dedicated in March of 1998 and it reads: "On this place was the house where Gondza Bojadziu - Mother Teresa - was born on 26 August 1910". Her message to the world is also inscribed: "The world is not hungry for bread, but for love."This luminous messenger of God’s love was born on 26 August 1910 in Skopje, a city situated at the crossroads of Balkan history. The youngest of the children born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu, she was baptised Gonxha Agnes, received her First Communion at the age of five and a half and was confirmed in November 1916. From the day of her First Holy Communion, a love for souls was within her. Her father’s sudden death when Gonxha was about eight years old left in the family in financial straits. Drane raised her children firmly and lovingly, greatly influencing her daughter’s character and vocation. Gonxha’s religious formation was further assisted by the vibrant Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in which she was much involved.
At the age of eighteen, moved by a desire to become a missionary, Gonxha left her home in September 1928 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland. There she received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Thérèse of Lisieux. In December, she departed for India, arriving in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. After making her First Profession of Vows in May 1931, Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta and taught at St. Mary’s School for girls. On 24 May 1937, Sister Teresa made her Final Profession of Vows, becoming, as she said, the “spouse of Jesus” for “all eternity.” From that time on she was called Mother Teresa. She continued teaching at St. Mary’s and in 1944 became the school’s principal. A person of profound prayer and deep love for her religious sisters and her students, Mother Teresa’s twenty years in Loreto were filled with profound happiness. Noted for her charity, unselfishness and courage, her capacity for hard work and a natural talent for organization, she lived out her consecration to Jesus, in the midst of her companions, with fidelity and joy.
On 10 September 1946 during the train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa received her “inspiration,” her “call within a call.” On that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate His thirst became the driving force of her life. Over the course of the next weeks and months, by means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to her the desire of His heart for “victims of love” who would “radiate His love on souls.” “Come be My light,” He begged her. “I cannot go alone.” He revealed His pain at the neglect of the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance of Him and His longing for their love. He asked Mother Teresa to establish a religious community, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor. Nearly two years of testing and discernment passed before Mother Teresa received permission to begin. On August 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in a white, blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of her beloved Loreto convent to enter the world of the poor.
After a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. On 21 December she went for the first time to the slums. She visited families, washed the sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and nursed a woman dying of hunger and TB. She started each day in communion with Jesus in the Eucharist and then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve Him in “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for.” After some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former students.
On 7 October 1950 the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa began to send her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted to the Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a house in Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania and, eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through the 1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist countries, including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.
In order to respond better to both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963, in 1976 the contemplative branch of the Sisters, in 1979 the Contemplative Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries of Charity Fathers. Yet her inspiration was not limited to those with religious vocations. She formed the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, people of many faiths and nationalities with whom she shared her spirit of prayer, simplicity, sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love. This spirit later inspired the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests as a “little way of holiness” for those who desire to share in her charism and spirit.
During the years of rapid growth the world began to turn its eyes towards Mother Teresa and the work she had started. Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian Padmashri Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honoured her work, while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities. She received both prizes and attention “for the glory of God and in the name of the poor.”
The whole of Mother Teresa’s life and labour bore witness to the joy of loving, the greatness and dignity of every human person, the value of little things done faithfully and with love, and the surpassing worth of friendship with God. But there was another heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death. Hidden from all eyes, hidden even from those closest to her, was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever-increasing longing for His love. She called her inner experience, “the darkness.” The “painful night” of her soul, which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life, led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God. Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus, in His painful and burning longing for love, and she shared in the interior desolation of the poor.
During the last years of her life, despite increasingly severe health problems, Mother Teresa continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving visitors and instructing her Sisters. On 5 September Mother Teresa’s earthly life came to an end. She was given the honour of a state funeral by the Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her response to Jesus’ plea, “Come be My light,” made her a Missionary of Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love of God.
Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness and the favours being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.
