Mother Teresa’s Global Appeal Evident At Ceremony

By CNS

Published: October 23, 2003

VATICAN CITY (CNS)—They came from New Zealand and New Delhi, Argentina and Australia, the Philippines and Philadelphia.

About 300,000 people gathered from around the world Oct. 19, crowding St. Peter’s Square and the surrounding streets to celebrate the beatification of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

The global work of the founder of the Missionaries of Charity was reflected in the range of nations represented in the congregation. Even more striking was how many of those 300,000 people felt a personal connection to the tiny nun who died six years ago.

Nearly all described their affection for her in the present tense, as if she were beside them: “Mother loves the poor,” or “Mother Teresa guides me.”

Father Joselee Cyrakkove of Kerala, India, described her international appeal.

“For any Christian, this is an important day,” he said. “For Indians it is very special. She had Albanian blood, Italian citizenship and worked in India, but she was a figure for the whole world.

“Her secret was she understood the message of Christ, which is to love Christ and find Christ in the poor,” Father Cyrakkove said.

Patrick and Kiran Baretto flew from New Delhi to stand in the square holding a large banner that read: “Mother Teresa of Calcutta, you set ablaze a path for humanity to Christ. From your loving children, Rochelle, Amaryllis, Gabriella, Chrisyllis, Kiran and Patrick Baretto.”

Tears welled up in Patrick Baretto’s eyes as he explained his connection to Mother Teresa.

“Whatever I ask for in life, she has given me—in my family, in my business,” he said. “I have four daughters; good, loving, healthy, smiling children. She has kept us together as a healthy, loving family.”

For about 15 years Baretto has been a member of the International Association of Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, and he said he met her a few times. He said the most lasting impression he has of her is her plea for people to “just look after my children. And she didn’t mean my own children, she meant all the children in the world.”

Arlene Sattler of Minneapolis credits Mother Teresa with curing her son-in-law’s cancer. She was at St. Peter’s Square with a pilgrimage group from Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Stanley, N.D., where her son, Father Wayne Sattler, is pastor. Father Sattler was among more than 100 priests helping distribute the Eucharist at the beatification Mass.

His parishioners said the priest met Mother Teresa several times, including once when he was studying in Rome and volunteering for the Missionaries of Charity.

Arlene Sattler said at one of those meetings Mother Teresa asked him to pray for her to be able to go to China. In return, she said, “When I die I will pray for you.”

When her son-in-law’s oral cancer was found to be aggressively advancing and “the prognosis was not good,” Arlene Sattler said, the family took Mother Teresa up on her offer and prayed for her intervention. Before long, the cancer was gone.

“The doctors couldn’t understand it,” she said. “They said there was no medical explanation.” The doctors have submitted information about his case to the postulator working for Mother Teresa’s canonization, she added.

Carmen Viegelmann of Auckland, New Zealand, said she was most struck by Mother Teresa’s love for the poor, “which I am trying to emulate. I don’t know how, but I’m trying.”

Viegelmann said she came to the beatification because “We just want to bask in her glory.”

Mary Jane Bauer of Chicago gave up on reaching St. Peter’s Square through the crushing crowds at security checkpoints. She was content to watch on closed-circuit television set up along Via della Conciliazione outside the square.

She said she admired Mother Teresa’s ability to love, “to see Jesus in everyone.” She said she was especially impressed when, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in 1994, Mother Teresa condemned abortion and offered to take in the child of any woman considering an abortion. U.S. President Bill Clinton, who supported legal abortion, sat beside her at the event.

Many people in the city seemed to have met Mother Teresa or known someone who had.

Father Peter Long was leading a pilgrimage of 34 people from Our Lady of Vietnam Parish in the Archdiocese of Washington. A Vietnamese immigrant, he said he met Mother Teresa twice in Washington and asked her to pray for Vietnam.

“She gave a good example for many people,” he said. “She loved God and served people. That is a very simple, but very great way to live.”

Michael Emmanuel Robinson decided the day before the beatification to fly to Rome from his Chicago home. As an American Airlines employee, it was relatively easy for him, he said.

Wearing elaborate African dress, he arrived straight from the airport and full of enthusiasm, despite the fact that he lacked a ticket for admission to the square.

Robinson volunteers at a Missionaries of Charity shelter in Chicago, where he said sisters of Mother Teresa’s order inspire him. Deciding to come to Rome, he said, was a decision to “step out in faith.”

The bright, sunny day was seen by many people as an example of Mother Teresa watching out for her children.

Heavy rain fell the night before, and forecasters had called for more. Instead, umbrellas were used for sunshades, and raincoats became cushions for hundreds of thousands of people without chairs to sit on the cobblestones during the Mass readings and the pope’s homily.

On the steps near the colonnade that rings the square, two petite Indian nuns found shade by sitting between American teens who were a full head taller than they were.

As the two-hour Mass concluded, many people lingered in the square for an hour or more, chatting, pulling out lunch or taking photos of each other in front of the new portrait of Mother Teresa that hung on the front of St. Peter’s Basilica.

And Missionaries of Charity, in their distinctive blue-trimmed white saris, found themselves suddenly in demand as the new celebrities of the hour.

Hurrying to a luncheon for the people who eat and sleep at their order’s charities in Rome, they were stopped every few steps as they crossed the square.

“One photograph, please,” one group after another would ask in Italian or English or Tagalog; people posed quickly around one or two of the sisters.

The sisters would wait patiently, smile and try to move on, only to be stopped again by someone else who wanted a picture with the women who are one part of Mother Teresa’s legacy.