ARCHDIOCESE CELEBRATES CANONIZATION OF BLESSED MOTHER TERESA
August 30, 2016  |  By:   |  Press Releases  |  

Archbishop Gomez to Celebrate Special Mass and Dedicate Chapel in Honor of Mother Teresa

Archbishop José H. Gomez will celebrate a special Mass to honor Blessed Mother Teresa on occasion of her canonization in Rome. The Mass will be held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Sunday, September 4, from 3:30 pm to 4:30 p.m. and it will feature a first-class relic of the founder of the Missionaries of Charity.

“St. Teresa of Kolkata’s works of love, done for the abandoned and forsaken in a remote city in India, made hers a household name the world over,” said Archbishop Gomez. “Mother Teresa gave up her privileged position and all her possessions to live as one of the world’s poor and forgotten and to bring them the light of Christ and the love of God.”

After the Mass, Archbishop Gomez will bless and officially open a chapel dedicated to Mother Teresa, where photographs and stories recording her visits to Los Angeles will be on display, as well as the relic, for public veneration.

“I recall thinking that she was one remarkable and dedicated person,” said Msgr. Francis Weber, archivist emeritus of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who met Mother Teresa on her visits to L.A. and attended her beatification in Rome in 2003, which he documented. “She appeared to be a single-minded and rather oblivious to anyone or anything unrelated to her immediate objectives, truly great people are like that. Rarely if ever are they distracted by the mundanities of everyday life,” he said.

Pope Francis will declare Blessed Teresa of Kolkata a saint at the Vatican on Sunday, September 4. The date was announced March 15 during an “ordinary public consistory,” a meeting of the pope, cardinals and promoters of sainthood causes that formally ends the sainthood process. The date chosen 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 works of mercy. The theme of her canonization is “Mother Teresa, carrier of God’s tender and merciful love.”

“Mother Teresa used to say, ‘works of love are works of peace,’” said Missionary of Charity Sister Mariosa, Superior of the Missionaries of Charity House in Lynwood. “In our humble little acts of love, our poor, sick, and suffering brothers and sisters experience God’s tender love and concern for them, and they turn to God in gratitude and love, and receive His peace.”

The Massin honor of Mother Teresa will be live streamed via Facebook, at www.facebook.com/olacathedral, and http://www.olacathedral.org