The Hindu : Celebrations ahead of Teresa's beatification

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 28, 2003

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Celebrations ahead of Teresa's beatification

New Delhi Sept. 27. The Delhi Catholic Archdiocese will organise week-long celebrations from October 17 to spread the message of Mother Teresa ahead of her beatification on October 19 at the Vatican.

``Overjoyed at the news of the beatification of Mother Teresa, the Archdiocese will be organising celebrations which will include symposium, blood donation camps, fellowship meals and inter-religious prayer meetings,'' the Delhi Archbishop, Vincent M. Concessao, told reporters here today.

A symposium on the life and message of Mother Teresa would be co-hosted with the YMCA and inaugurated by the former President, K.R. Narayanan, and attended among others by the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the former Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, he said.

Asked if any official representative would be attending the beatification ceremony at the Vatican, Concessao said a request to this effect has been made to the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The archdiocese has also decided to give a one-time Mother Teresa award of Rs. 35,000 to a ``committed social worker,'' he said. There will also be celebrations in other parts of the country, including a film festival on Mother Teresa in Kolkata.

On the day of beatification, which coincides with the jubilee day of the Holy Father and Mission Sunday, all the parishes in the Archdiocese were advised to have one main mass in the morning, he said. There were over 4000 branches of Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa.

Sister Nirmala to lead delegation

A seven-member delegation, led by the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) superior-general, Sister Nirmala, would attend the beatification ceremony in the Vatican on October 19 and present token gifts to the Pope.

The team, part of a national delegation of about 50 sisters from MoC centres spread across the country, leaving for Rome tonight, would include Sister Lynn and other senior sisters of the order founded by Mother Teresa, a senior member of the MoC, Sister Christie said here today.

``We have been praying for Mother's sainthood in our prayers sessions since the Vatican began the process of beatification,'' Sister Christie said.

The first team from Kolkata, led by Sister Nirmala, would board a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight after midnight tonight while another delegation would leave next week, she said.

An MoC spokesperson told PTI that Monica Besra, the tribal woman from South Dinajpur district of West Bengal, whose testimony of a `miraculous cure' from an abdominal tumour through the Mother's intercession paved the way for the nun's beatification, would leave for Vatican after a few days.

Besra's claim was accepted by the Vatican as `a miracle' of the Mother. The programme in Vatican includes the Rosary, which will begin on October 19 at 9 a.m., to be followed by a mass for the beatification by the Pope at 10 a.m.

The two-hour beatification programme would be followed by a film show `Legacy: Mother Teresa', she added. — PTI

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