Saintly relics on way to Rome

2003-10-01 16:04

New Delhi - Relics from Mother Teresa, including her blood and hair and some items of clothing, have been sent to the Vatican to include in elaborate ceremonies for her beatification on October 19, her order said on Wednesday.

The relics will be blessed at the special ceremony at the Vatican and some will later be distributed to the public both in Italy and in India, Sister Savita, superior general of the Missionaries of Charity in New Delhi, told reporters.

Three classes of relics will be included in the ritual: blood and hair; possessions such as clothes and bedsheets; and cloth items that have touched Mother Teresa's tomb in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, where she tended to the sick and dying for about five decades.

Mother Teresa's beatification - the fastest such elevation in history and the last step before sainthood - means she can be declared a saint if another "miracle" can be attributed to her.

Miracle cure

It follows a discovery by a Vatican commission that a Bengali tribal woman Monica Besra was miraculously cured of a stomach tumour in 1998, a year after Mother Teresa's death, following prayers by the Missionaries of Charity.

After the October ceremony, Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, will formally be known as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and followers will be able seek her intercession for blessings and other prayers.

Mother Teresa's successor, Sister Nirmala and Besra, whom the Albanian born nun is believed to have cured, will be in Rome for the beatification.

No native Indian has been canonised as a saint yet though at least three people have been beatified for their work and await sainthood.

Some foreign missionaries who worked in India, including Saint Thomas who founded the Catholic Church here, have been anointed saints.

The body of another, Saint Francis Xavier, is preserved in a church in the western coastal state of Goa.

- AFP