West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: Woodrow on October 01, 2002, 07:13:26 PM
-
VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born nun who worked among the poor of the Indian city of Kolkata, has had a miracle attributed to her by Pope John Paul's office, the Italian media reported.
A special Vatican committee found that Mother Teresa was involved in a miracle -- a key step in her beatification -- when a 30-year-old Kolkata woman was cured of a stomach tumour.
The reports said Monica Besra was healed after praying to Mother Teresa, who died in 1997 at the age of 87, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Vatican officials refused to comment on Tuesday.
After consulting with doctors, the Vatican panel found there was no "scientific explanation" for the woman's recovery, making it a miracle, the agency said.
The committee's findings will not become official until they are approved by Pope John Paul II. Monsignor Robert Sarno, who heads the panel, would say only that "the cause is under study."
If Mother Teresa, who founded the Missionaries of Charities order that ministered to the poor and sick of Kolkata, is beatified, involvement in a second miracle will be needed before she is elevated to saint.
If the pope approves the panel's findings, it will speed up Mother Teresa's beatification, making it likely she will be declared a saint sometime next year.
Last month the committee decided Mother Teresa possessed "heroic virtues" of the Christian faith for her services to the poor.
"She was a real holy woman. She lived her life according to the Gospel in the most authentic way," Cardinal Pio Laghi told Reuters.
"She deserved the preferential, fast track to beatification."
Under church rules, five years must pass after a person dies before the long bureaucratic procedure for sainthood can begin. But in 1999, Pope John Paul II granted a dispensation so the procedure could start less than two years after her death.
Devotees of Mother Teresa began pressing the Vatican soon after her death to speed up the nun's sainthood cause, saying her holiness was clear to many around the world.
Her nuns and priests continue her work around the world, including some ex-communist countries where she was banned. Her order has offices in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australia, as well as Hong Kong and Russia.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mother Teresa set up her order in the slums of Kolkata in 1950 and made her headquarters in the Indian city for nearly half a century.
Her small figure in a white-and-blue sari and sandals became familiar around the world. She was known to buttonhole politicians and executives and not let go until they promised to help the poor.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/10/01/pope.teresa/index.html
May she Rest in Peace...
I wish I had half the love and devotion she had...
-
Mother Teresa will be a saint eventually. She was one of the greatest women to ever step foot in this world. I wish we would have followed her example, and be more peaceful and more understanding. God has a special place for people like her, and others.
-
Thanks engel, that was a good read.
-
She sure does deserve it. How could she not be considered a saint when she dedicated her life to the sick and poor?