Miracle Clears Way to Mother Teresa's Beatification

VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II has decided he will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his pontificate with the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, foundress of the Missionaries of Charity.

On Dec. 20, the Congregation for Sainthood Causes promulgated the two decrees necessary for beatification — one on the heroic nature of Mother Teresa's virtues, the other on a miracle attributed to her inter-cession.

The same day, Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa's successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, announced that the Holy Father has chosen to celebrate the beatification next Oct. 19, World Mission Sunday.

John Paul was elected on Oct. 16, 1978, and was solemnly installed as Pope on Oct. 22, 1978, World Mission Sunday that year. In 1997, the Holy Father chose Mission Sunday to declare St. Thérèse of Lisieux a doctor of the Church and in 1998 celebrated his 20th anniversary on that Sunday.

“There is a real connection between Mother Teresa and St. Thérèse, and not only because she took her name,” said Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Missionary of Charity priest who is the postulator for Mother Teresa's cause. “Mother was a teenager in the 1920s. Thérèse was beatified in 1923, canonized in 1925 and declared patroness of the missions in 1927. Mother left for the missions in 1928. There is a real influence of St. Thérèse on Mother, and Mother had a great love for Thérèse. Mother makes incarnate, concrete so much of what Thérèse taught. She can be considered one of Thérèse's great spiritual daughters.”

Mother Teresa died on Sept. 5, 1997, in Calcutta. The diocesan inquiry began on July 26, 1999, after the Holy Father waived the usual five-year waiting period.

“The five-year rule is to ensure that there is a genuine reputation for holiness among the people and that there is not just passing enthusiasm soon after a person dies,” Father Kolodiejchuk said. “But in Mother's case, there was no need to wait, as her holiness was a matter of worldwide belief.”

Nevertheless, the process required a specific papal decision to waive the five-year rule and then, last year, a papal intervention that ordered the work to proceed as quickly as possible.

“Some people asked why we needed a process at all, given that it would have been much more surprising if a negative decision had been given,” Father Kolodiejchuk said. “But I see the great value of having the process — and we did the whole process. We did not just do the minimum to say that we had done it — we did a well-done process, which was necessary for a major figure like Mother Teresa. And now we have the material for a much deeper understanding of Mother Teresa, which would likely not have been the case otherwise.”

50 Years of Darkness

One of the aspects of Mother Teresa&x0027;s life revealed by the process was that she lived for 50 years a spiritual darkness. (See Inperson interview.)

“The lives of certain holy men and women reveal that even when deep union with God has been reached. intense spiritual trials may be experienced.” Father Kolodiejchuk said. “[The spiritual darkness which she suffered] reveals her previously unknown depth of holiness and places her among the ranks of the great mystics of the Church.”

Father Kolodiejchuk, a Winnipeg, Monitoba, native and a priest of the men's branch of the Missionaries of Charity, headed up a small team of priests and sisters responsible for the work. The cause convened panels that investigated all of Mother Teresa's writings. took testimony from more than 100 witnesses who knew her and compiled all that was known about her spiritual life from secret correspondence, revealed only after her death.

The resulting dossier grew to more than 80 volumes of more than 450 pages each, with a summary biography of more than 6,00 pages.

In addition to the biographical work, which is necessary to show that the candidate lived the virtues in a heroic manner, one miracle is needed for beatification.

The Miracle

The miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession was the healing of an Indian woman's abdominal tumor. Monica Besra, a resident of a home in West Bengal operated by the Missionaries of Charity, was in such pain from the tumor that she could not sleep.

The nuns took a Miraculous Medal that had been touched to the body of Mother Teresa and placed it on her abdomen. She went to sleep and when she awoke — on Sept. 5, 1998, the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death — the tumor had disappeared. A Vatican board of medical consultants determined that the healing was medically inexplicable.

Some questions arose in October about the miraculous nature of the cure from the patient's husband, Seiku Murmu, and the doctors who had been treating her.

“My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle,” Murmu said, reported Time Asia. “I want to stop this jamboree, people coming with cameras every few hours or so.”

Besra admitted she saw doctors but insisted the pain from her tumor only abated when she applied the medallion and prayed to Mother Teresa.

“In one sense we have a sense of great joy, because our mother is being recognized, her holiness is being recognized, but also there is an awareness that in a new way, Mother Teresa is not just our mother but the mother of everyone, and especially the mother of the poor,” Father Kolodiejchuk said.

“One of defining characteristics of this pontificate is to show that what the Church is about is holiness,” he added. “So John Paul has canonized saints who were martyrs, from different walks of life and from different places. In a way, Mother Teresa incarnates many of the themes of this pontificate.”

Father Raymond J. de Souza filed this story from Jerusalem.