Kolkata: A few minutes past 2 p.m. on Sunday, thousands gathered at Mother House in Kolkata erupted in joy the very moment Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a Saint at the Vatican.
Clapping, loud cheers and sounds of bells rent the air around the three-storied house in heart of the city. All roads in the city led to the house on 54 A, A.J.C. Bose Road popularly called Mother House, the headquarters of Missionaries of Charity, which was all decked up for the event.
Hundreds of her followers made a beeline to the Mother House and offered prayers, bowing around and by touching her grave. By the afternoon when the canonisation ceremony started, the tomb was covered with blue and white flowers.
Besides the tomb a photograph of Mother Teresa with a message “Saint Teresa of Kolkata, Pray for Us’’ also attracted visitors and the nuns of the Missionaries of Kolkata in the blue and white sarees alike.
The live streaming of the canonisation ceremony from Rome was telecasted on two giant screens at Mother Teresa. Photographs of Mother Teresa adorned her the walls of the room as people sat on benches floors watching silently the ceremony’s telecast.
A huge flex of Mother Teresa like the one hung from the balcony in Vatican was also put up inside the Mother House. The photograph has a halo around Mother Teresa’s face something which only a Saint can have, a nun explained, The Hindu reported.
Outside Mother House, an event was organised by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Speaking at the event Sister Lysa, assistant-general of Missionaries of Charity emphasised the inseparable connection between Mother Teresa and Kolkata. Throughout her Life Mother worked on A.J.C. Bose road giving humble love and service to unwanted, to the orphans, to the sick dying and leprosy patients, she said.
“Her path of holiness was very simple within the reach of every ordinary person,” Sister Lysa, said, praying to Saint Teresa of Kolkata “ to bless all of us”.