Posted on 03/15/2016 3:18:39 PM PDT by Kaslin
Mother Teresa, or Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, will be declared a saint in the Roman Catholic Church on September 4, Pope Francis announced on Tuesday. While it was announced in December that she had been cleared for sainthood, her date of canonization was announced today.
Affectionately known as the "saint of the gutter" for her unconditional ?love ?for the poor, abandoned and marginalized, Mother Teresa earned several international honors, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
She was beatified in 2003 by Pope John Paul II after being attributed to a first miracle, answering an Indian woman's prayers to cure her brain tumor, according to the Vatican. One miracle is needed for beatification — described by the Catholic Church as recognition of a person's entrance into heaven — while sainthood requires two.
Francis officially cleared Mother Teresa for sainthood on Dec. 17, 2015, recognizing her "miraculous healing" of a Brazilian man with multiple brain abscesses, the Vatican said.
Mother Teresa is the founder of the Missionaries of Charity and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. When she passed away on September 5, 1997, the customary five-year waiting period prior to the beginning of the sainthood process was waived.
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Seems a bit harsh to me. BTT
That’s always what leaps to my mind when I hear that term, as well.
I don’t get it...
NOW I get it, but it was stupid!
Rome can certainly honor her, but if she’s not already a saint, it’s far too late. Human recommendations are of no consequence. She either wholly trusted Christ and His finished work or she didn’t.
It will e hard to find a woman of her caliber again.
CC
The urge to Canonize everyone and so quickly is nuts. It used to be centuries. Now it is a few years. And a “miracle” can be counted if one got a parking spot in NYC after 8 PM.
That picture is perfect: two Vatican II “Saints”.
I see what you did there.
How Many Miracles are Required to Canonize a Saint?
Saints [Catholic, Orthodox, Open]
SAINTHOOD 101: Rules for Becoming a Saint [Catholic Caucus]
The Process of Becoming a Saint (Canonization) [Catholic Caucus]
Pope Lists Criteria for Causes of Canonization
CRACKER-barrel!
Thank you for the good news.
If she wasn't a saint before death, she cannot be one now.
Every person who entrusts themselves to Christ alone for salvation becomes a saint from the moment of their salvation. The Apostles address them as saints.
That the RC church doesn't put forth the truth about the sainthood of every single believer in Christ, perpetuates a myth of two distinct classes of Christians.
I agree with what I take to be your main point, which is that she's in heaven or she's not, and no purely human proclamation will help or hinder that---
But no one claims that the proclamation promotes or accomplishes her arrival in heaven!
And so your first sentence, is ambiguous. "Far too late" --- for what? All that canonization does, is authorize public honor by having their name included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints.
This process, so much misunderstood, actually puts a lid on the honors which would otherwise proliferate in "popular piety" which in the past, and still today, could get out of hand. Wouldn't a kind of popular piety have "sainted" Elvis Presley? Evita Peron? Princess Diana? Or any number of royals, entertainers, celebrities?
And then there are the sainted wives or mothers of popular pastors, the sainted big donors to church building funds, the people whose names appear before the word "Memorial" in so many Christian houses of worship, for instance the "Asbury Memorial Church."
The official process of canonization puts a damper on that by formalizing the investigation and by achieving some historic and emotional distance between the death of a popular person and the sober consideration of their life of virtue.
For perspective, St. Joan of Arc died in 1431, canonized 1920. Just short of 500 years.
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