Relics of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who will be canonized a saint by Pope Francis at the Vatican this coming Sunday, will be displayed at the Our Lady Veritas Chapel in Quezon City for public veneration, especially by Filipino Catholics.
Aside from the relics, a huge statue of Mother Teresa, known for her passion for helping the poorest of the poor, the sick and the downtrodden when she was alive, will also be on display.
The photographs of Blessed Teresa on display include caring and feeding of the sick in India where she lived most of her life until her death on Sept. 5, 1997 at aged 87.
There are also pictures of Mother Teresa with the late Jaime Cardinal Sin and former President Corazon Aquino.
Veneration time is from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily until September 4, the day of her canonization by the Roman Pontiff.
The Veritas Chapel is at the corner of Edsa and West Avenue in Quezon City.
The exhibit will give Filipino Catholics the rare opportunity to venerate the relics of the soon-to-be St. Teresa of Calcutta prior to her canonization on Sunday.
Adding significance to Mother Teresa’s canonization is that it coincides with the Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis.
During her lifetime, Mother Teresa touched the lives of millions of people of all faiths around the world with her humility and ministry to those gravely sick and abandoned, feeding and embracing them as her simple and sincere way of caring for them.
Born to an ethnic Albanian family in Skopje, Yugoslavia, now Macedonia, she went to India in 1929 as a Sister of Loreto and became an Indian citizen in 1947. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950.
Her humanitarian work spread throughout the world and comforted millions that shortly after her death in 1997, Pope John Paul II waived the usual five-year waiting period before the start of the beatification rites and allowed the opening of the process towards sainthood.
She was beatified in 2003, after which a book about her was published by the Missionaries of Charity entitled “Come Be My Light.” It narrated “how, for decades, she experienced what is described as a ‘dark night of the soul’ in Christian spirituality. She felt that God had abandoned her. While the letters shocked some people, others saw them as proof of her steadfast faith in God, which was not based on feelings or signs that He was with her.”
The date for her canonization is the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death and the date previously established at the Vatican for the conclusion of the Year of Mercy pilgrimage of people like her who are engaged in corporal and spiritual works of mercy.