Mother Teresa to be cannonised on September 4

Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be canonised on September 4 this year.

Pope Francis announced the date for the canonisation at a public consistory of cardinals in Vatican on Tuesday.

The Holy Father announced the upcoming canonization of five new saints, including Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata (née Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu) after a liturgical prayer, Vatican Radio announced.

Mother Teresa is a winner of Nobel Peace Prize and founder of Missionaries of Charity.

Born in Skopje, Macedonia, to Kosovar Albanian parents in 1928, she left her family at the age of 17 to join the congregation of Sisters of Loretto. She began her work as a teacher and later became headmistress of Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta.

However, following an “inner call within a call”, she left the convent and started living among the poor, teaching poor children and caring for the sick at their homes in 1948. She also became an Indian citizen. A year later, some of her former students joined her and soon the Missionaries of Charity was born as a congregation of Diocese of Calcutta. The city of Calcutta granted them a house which became a home for the dying so that people could die with dignity.

Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997. She was beatified just six years later by St. John Paul II.