Pope Francis has officially recognized the second miracle of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, clearing the way for her canonization, which will reportedly take place on September 4, 2016, as a major event of the Jubilee Year of Mercy.
Several days ago the Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted unanimously to approve the case of a 35-year-old Brazilian man who was cured instantly and in a scientifically inexplicable manner from a deadly brain disease in 2008. The man was reportedly already dying on the operating table, while his wife begged God for a cure through the intercession of Mother Teresa, when he was miraculously healed.
The ratification of the decree by Pope Francis is the final step of the procedure that will lead to the declaration of Mother Teresa’s sainthood.
Mother Teresa was not an easy saint. She made people very uncomfortable. After she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, Harvard University invited her to give their annual class day speech in 1982. What she said there was so unsettling to the Harvard establishment that they never published the text of her speech.
Mother Teresa decided to speak about the very unpopular topics of abortion and virginity.
The first human being to recognize Jesus when He came in the flesh was an unborn child, John the Baptist, she said.
“And today, today it is unbelievable that the mother herself murders her own child, afraid of having to feed one more child, afraid to educate one more child. The child must die. This is one of the greatest poverties.”
“A nation, people, family that allows that, that accepts that, they are the poorest of the poor,” she said.
She also told the enlightened, modern college students that virginity was the greatest gift a man and a woman can give each other when they get married.
“Make that resolution, that on your wedding day you can give each other something beautiful,” she said. “The most beautiful thing is to give a virgin heart, a virgin body, a virgin soul. That’s the greatest gift that the young man can give the young woman, and that the young woman can give the man.”
Mother Teresa, founder of the religious congregation of the Missionaries of Charity, was born in Skopje, Albania, in 1910 and died in Calcutta in 1997. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003, just two years after her death.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome.
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