Mother Teresa to be made saint Sept 4 — Pope Francis

Mother Teresa

Pope Francis announced yesterday that Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who worked with the poor in Calcutta, India, is to be declared a saint on September 4, 2016.
The news was received by Catholic faithful in Nigeria with a lot of excitement.

The Director of Communications, Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, Rev. Fr. Patrick Alumuku, who met the late Mother Teresa in the course of his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University said yesterday: “I received the news joyfully. She was a contemporary of Pope John Paul II who was also very appreciative of her work. While he was preaching around the world, Mother Teresa was showing the love of God to the world.
“They were both considered extraordinary people. Pope John Paul had been canonised and now her. In recent history, they are the two people who have gone through the fastest period of canonisation. It’s hundreds of years after anyone died before they are beatified and then about 20 years before they are canonised,” he said.
Mrs. Angela Osarumwense, a parishioner of the Holy Family Catholic Church, Gwarinpa said: “I’m very happy about this. Being a convert into Catholicism by marriage, I was happy that the church had someone like her who helped my spirituality in the faith.”
Mother Teresa, popularly referred to as a living saint in her lifetime, won the Nobel Peace Prize and founded a sisterhood that runs 19 homes.
She died aged 87 in 1997 and five years after, John Paul II accepted a miracle attributed to her as authentic. She was beatified in 2003, the first step to sainthood.