Around the world: Mother Teresa’s canonisation and Pope Francis’s mission

By Anonymous

Mother Teresa’s canonisation and Pope Francis’s mission
Bernardo Cervellera


The saint of Kolkata is a Jubilee icon, and can help promote corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The pope is praised but not understood. For Mother Teresa, as for Francis, the Church "is not an NGO". The Mother is also an example of how to reconcile contemplation and action, sacrament and mission, witness and commitment in the world, rectifying the discrepancies of those who are traditionalist and inward looking as well those who hold shapeless liberal views.

 Mother Teresa’s canonisation in the Jubilee year helps to make mercy effective and efficient in society. So far, the pope’s messages and gestures during this year to prisoners, the poor, and refugees have found little fulfilment.

 Very often, Christians see the Jubilee as an opportunity for personal spiritual renewal, but one that does not translate immediately ("quickly", Mother Teresa would say) in acts and deeds that also influence society.

 Just look at the resistance in Europe to the flow of migrants fleeing wars in the Middle East and hunger and gloom in Africa. All this is happening despite that fact that politicians from all sides continue to "appreciate" the pope’s words and want to have their pictures taken next to this "beacon" of the world's conscience.

 Mother Teresa’s canonisation rectifies another flaw. Many people continue to praise the pope for his tenderness, kindness, openings to gays, remarried divorcees, reducing him to an iconic figure of the most sugary do-goodism, without listening deeply and completely to what the pope has to say. [link]

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