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Final Preparations For Canonization of Mother Teresa

Now only ten days away, the canonization of Mother Teresa has Rome buzzing with activity. While Rome was not severely affected by the earthquake that has devastated central Italy, tremors were felt in the city. Pope Francis “went off scrip” during his Wednesday address, and chose instead to lead those present in a rosary for the victims of that quake. However, this disaster has not slowed the preparations for the September 4 canonization.

Beginning September 1, the Vatican will lead the world in a weeklong celebration of the life and work of Mother Teresa. According to the National Catholic Register, the week will begin

… with the opening of an “Exposition of the Life, Spirit and Message of Mother Teresa” at the LUMSA university in Rome. The exposition will last until Sept. 7.

On the evening of Sept. 1, the Missionaries of Charity will provide a “family feast” for the poor under their care at the Santa Cecilia auditorium on the Via della Conciliazione. Part of the evening’s highlights: Mother Teresa: The Musical by the Italian musician, author, singer and actor Michele Paulicelli.

Three consecutive Masses to honor Mother Teresa are scheduled for the following day in three languages — English, Spanish and Italian — at the Basilica of St. Anastasia, close to the Missionaries of Charity motherhouse and Rome’s Circus Maximus, with veneration of the relics of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata after each Mass.

Mother Teresa’s beatification (the  formal step prior to canonization) drew estimated crowds of 300,000. Her canonization will certainly draw even more.

The prayer for Mother Teresa’s canonization refers to her as “carrier of Christ’s mercy and love,” befitting not only the holy woman, but the Year of Mercy as well. The prayer is as follows:

Lord Jesus, merciful Face of the Father, you came to give us the Good News of the Father’s mercy and tenderness.

We thank you for the gift of our dearest Mother, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who will be canonized in this Jubilee Year of Mercy. You chose her to be your presence, your love and compassion to the brokenhearted, the unwanted, the abandoned and the dying. She responded wholeheartedly to your cry, ‘I Thirst,’ by the holiness of her life and humble works of love to the poorest of the poor.

We pray, through her intercession, for the grace to experience your merciful love and share it in our own families, communities and with all our suffering brothers and sisters. Help us to give our “hearts to love and hands to serve” after the example of Mother Teresa. Lord Jesus, bless every member of our family, our parish, our diocese, our country, especially those most in need, that we all may be transformed by your merciful love. Amen.

Join us as we continue to pray and prepare for this celebration of the Church’s newest saint.

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The Canonization Process: How Does The Church Declare A Saint?

The Catholic Church will be declaring its newest saint on September 4, 2016: Mother Teresa of Kolkota. As you might imagine, the Church has a rather rigorous method of formally declaring a person a saint. (Keep in mind, too, that just because a person is not formally declared a saint does not mean they are not in Heaven in the presence of God for all eternity. The Church simply cannot go through this process with every single person.)

The formal process of the Church entails several steps: being declared a Servant of God, then Venerable, Blessed and finally Saint. Usually the process cannot begin until the person has been deceased for at least 5 years, unless the pope waives that time period. St. John Paul II waived the period for Mother Teresa, and Pope Benedict XVI waived it for John Paul II. Once the 5 year waiting period has concluded, the bishop of the diocese where that person lived petitions the Vatican to begin the process. If there are no objections, the process begins.

The road to canonization can seem like a very long one, and it is, for good reason. The Church must invest a great deal of time and research into that person’s life, making sure that the person did indeed lead a holy life in all matters, both public and private.

Once the process begins, the person in question is given the title, “Servant of God.” If you’ve ever wondered why so many priests and nuns are declared saints and not so many lay people, it lays in this step. All the person’s writings must be collected, including private writings such as diaries and letters to friends and family. The person’s entire life must be documented. For a religious, the diocese or the religious order may designate people to do this work. For a lay person, it is much more difficult to have someone devote so much time for this. It is essentially a full-time job for at least one person, and usually more.

Once that step has been completed, the person is declared “Venerable.” At this point, one miracle must be attributed to the intercession of this person. In the case of John Paul II, it came from a French nun, who suffered from Parkinson’s (the same disease that claimed the life of the pontiff.) Her miraculous recovery from the disease in 2011 was the first recorded miracle attributed to Pope John Paul II’s intercession. Such miracles must be investigated and confirmed by two tribunals, one scientific and one theological:

The scientific commission must determine by accepted scientific criteria that there is no natural explanation for the alleged miracle. While miracles could be of any type, those almost exclusively proposed for Causes are medical. These must be well-documented, both as regards the disease and the treatment, and as regard the healing and its persistence.

While the scientific commission rules that the cure is without natural explanation, the theological  commission must rule whether the cure was a miracle in the strict sense, that is, by its nature can only be attributed to God. To avoid any question of remission due to unknown natural causation, or even unrecognized therapeutic causation, theologians prefer cures of diseases judged beyond hope by medicine, and which occur more or less instantaneously. The disappearance of a malignancy from one moment to another, or the instantaneous regeneration of diseased, even destroyed, tissue excludes natural processes, all of which take time. Such cases also exclude the operation of the angelic nature. While the enemy could provoke a disease by his oppression and simulate a cure by withdrawing his action, the cure could not be instantaneous, even one day to the next. Much less can he regenerate tissue from nothing. These are, therefore, the preferred kinds of cases since they unequivocally point to a divine cause.

The theological commission must also determine whether the miracle resulted through the intercession of the Servant of God alone. If the family and friends have been praying without cease to the Servant of God exclusively, then the case is demonstrated.

The next step is “beatification” and the person is given the title “Blessed.” This means that the person may be given private veneration or veneration in their own diocese or home. The Church’s investigation continues, and since the declaration of sainthood is considered infallible, the Vatican withholds the decree until all study of the person’s life is complete. At this point, a second miracle must be established. For John Paul II, this came from a man in Colombia, Marco Fidel Rojas, who also suffered from Parkinson’s:

Fidel remembers experiencing the first symptoms of the disease in December 2005. After a series of examinations, doctors determined he had suffered a stroke, which led to the development of Parkinson’s.

Little by little, the disease began to get worse. “I felt like I could collapse at any moment. Various times I fell down outside on the street,” he recalled, adding that once he was almost run over by a taxi.

As the years went by and his health continued to deteriorate, Fidel suddenly remembered on the evening of Dec. 27, 2010, that during a trip to Rome he had met Pope John Paul II after Mass and spoke with him for a few moments.

I have a friend up there, Fidel thought that night, amid his pain. “And he had Parkinson’s. Why didn’t I pray to him before? Venerable Father John Paul II: Come and heal me; put your hands on my head.”

After praying, Fidel said he slept perfectly that night; the next morning he woke up with no symptoms of the illness.

El Tiempo reported that Dr. Antonio Schlesinger Piedrahita, a renowned neurologist in Colombia, has certified Fidel’s healing and says he is in good health.

The pope must assent to the findings of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. Once the Holy Father gives his consent, the person may be canonized.

By the Rite of Canonization the Supreme Pontiff, by an act which is protected from error by the Holy Spirit, elevates a person to the universal veneration of the Church. By canonization the Pope does not make the person a saint. Rather, he declares that the person is with God and is an example of following Christ worthy of imitation by the faithful. A Mass, Divine Office and other acts of veneration, may now be offered throughout the universal Church.

Note the wording: “the Pope does not make the person a saint.”

The Catholic Church doesn’t make saints like Hollywood makes movie stars. Catholics saints are men and women who lived holy lives in obedience to God’s will, and they became saints at the moment they entered heaven. However, the Church does recognize those souls that the Church can confirm are in heaven as saints.

It is always a great celebration when a person is declared a saint for the Universal Church. We look forward to Mother Teresa’s canonization and the celebration of her dedication to the will of God.