Saint of the gutters:
Mother Teresa is considered for saint-hood
Kristy Maydwell
You are standing at the gates
of Vatican Square in Vatican City on October 19, 2003. It's 6:00 in the morning and already the
crowd is getting big. Finally,
they open the gates at 7:00 am and the continuously accumulating mob race
one another, trying to get good seats.
They rush to Saint Peter's Square.
People push and shove, and you know that if anyone falls they will
get trampled. You think that
a priest just elbowed you, racing with everyone else to get a good seat. Although you got there so early, you still
only get a seat in the middle of the crowd.
At 9 am they start playing music and praying. People are waving flags, and holding
banners and pictures of Mother Teresa.
About 450 of Mother Teresa's nuns are walking around, looking excited
and happy.
At 10 am the Mass begins and
the mob that was once a bunch of approximately 300,000 self-centered
individuals become one praying community; it is time to be a good Christian. During the beatification when the Pope
speaks, he is translated into English and Italian. A picture of Mother Teresa is unveiled in the square. The Mass lasts three hours, and then
the Pope rides through the crowd in his pope-mobile while people stand on their
chairs to get a better look. The
beatification is over, and it is time to push and shove back toward the gates.
This is how Marian alum
Sarah Lawler witnessed the beatification.
For her, the beatification was a time of celebration.
"I found the beatification
even more amazing because Mother Teresa will be a saint who lived during my
life time," said Lawler, in reference to the beatification.
Lawler said, "She was such
a compassionate person who gave so much for herself. People were so over-whelmed to be there-it was really special."
The steps to becoming a
saint are very lengthy. After a
local bishop investigates the candidate's heroic virtue, a panel of theologians
and the Congregation for Cause of Saints evaluate the person's life. After the panel approves, the pope must
say that the candidate is venerable.
Then follows beatification, which just happened to Mother Teresa. For Mother Teresa to have been
beatified, it must be found that she was responsible for a posthumous miracle. If she was martyred, however, she would
not have to have been responsible for a posthumous miracle. The next step is canonization. In order for Mother Teresa to be
canonized, it must be proven that she performed a second posthumous miracle.
In the 25 years Pope John Paul
II has been pontiff, he has canonized 477 people. Mother Teresa will be the 1319th
person.