What took Joan of Arc 500 years to do, (becoming a saint,) may take Mother Teresa far less. Adding Mother Teresa to the list of the Blesseds took a record-breaking seven years after her death in 1997.
Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa on Oct. 19, 2003. He described her as an “icon of the Good Samaritan.” Mother Teresa’s beatification occurred during the Pope’s 25th anniversary celebration.
Beatification is the second to last step of four in the process to become a saint. She has already passed her Local Inquiry and the Vatican Vote.
A second miracle must be discovered for Mother Teresa’s full Canonization.
For Mother Teresa’s first post-humous miracle, a Hindu woman, Monika Besra, was cured from a fatal stomach tumor. The miracle occurred after the sisters of the order prayed to Mother Teresa and then placed a medallion that she had touched to the woman’s belly. Within five hours the tumor had disappeared.
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk directed the historical background concerning Mother Teresa with a testimony 67 volumes long arguing for her canonization. At the same time 14 tribunals were held around the world to further confirm her future as a saint.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta dedicated her life to the less fortunate. She was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Albania in 1910, and became Sister Teresa at 17 after joining an Irish order. She worked with the “poorest of the poor” and lived in the simplistic lifestyle of those she has helped.
Though to many it may seem as it were only natural that Mother Teresa become a saint, others believe she is not qualified.
Most notably, Christopher Hitchens, who has in the past called Mother Teresa a hypocrite, testified against the Blessed Mother Teresa.
Hitchens’s believes that people’s unquestioning belief in her is misdirected and that people blindly do so because they have no reason to believe otherwise. He has set out to prove this in his television program Hell’s Angels and in his book The Missionary Position. He says that Mother Teresa spent her life “licking the feet of the rich instead of washing the feet of the poor.”
Hitchens is not the only one making a big deal over Mother Teresa. You can now catch her life story in Rome – the musical.