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A consistory, or formal meeting of Pope Francis with cardinals and church officials who promote sainthood causes, is expected to be held on Tuesday morning to finalise the sainthood ceremony
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NEW DELHI
Mother Teresa will be canonised on September 4, with the Vatican set to confirm details of the grand sainthood ceremony for the founder of the Missionaries of Charity and four others on March 15, a report stated on Sunday.
A consistory, or formal meeting of Pope Francis with cardinals and church officials who promote sainthood causes, is expected to be held on Tuesday morning to finalise the sainthood ceremony, stated the report quoting sources in the Vatican said.
The event at the Vatican will be followed by a thanksgiving celebration in Kolkata on October 2.
There has been speculation for months about the final date, and the sources said they had been expecting it to be around September 5, the death anniversary of Mother Teresa.
Pope Francis had officially cleared the path to Mother Teresa’s sainthood on December 17 last year, when he recognised the “miraculous healing” of a Brazilian man whose multiple brain abscesses were cured after his wife prayed to Mother Teresa.
The beatification of Mother Teresa “ another step towards declaring her a saint “ took place after Pope John Paul II recognised the healing of an Indian woman with a stomach tumour and conferred on her the title of “Blessed” on October 19, 2003. More than 300,000 people had attended this event at St Peter's Square in the Vatican.
A canonisation ceremony usually involves a special mass conducted by the Pope and is attended by huge crowds of believers. It is often held outdoors in St Peter’s Square, although sometimes the ceremony has been held in the home country of the person declared a saint.
The saint’s life history is read aloud and a large tapestry of the saint’s image is unfurled.
Sainthood is one of the highest honours granted by the Catholic Church through a long, complex and secretive process in which miracles are analysed theologically and medically before being attributed to a saint, the sources said.
Two miracles that take place after the death of the person have to be traced back to him or her. While healings are usually considered these days for sainthood, some of the other miracles the Church believes in range from “incorruptibility” (where the person’s body does not decay in the grave for a long time) to “levitation” during prayer and “stigmata” (the five wounds of Christ) that bleed during mass.
