Kolkata : Not known to express their emotion in public, nuns of the Missionaries of Charity on Sunday cheered loudly, clapped freely and rang bells the moment Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint.
Decked up with larger-than-life posters of the late Roman Catholic nun, the Mother House, headquarters of the congregation and house of the saint, was kept open throughout the day as visitors poured in to watch the ceremony live on big TV screens and offer flowers at her tomb.
In the afternoon when the Pope declared the ‘Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’ a saint in the Vatican City, the nuns and visitors present in the Mother House broke into a loud round of applause.
The nuns were not shy in cheering for the Mother in a loud voice and ringing bells in her honour.
There was special mass at 6 AM to celebrate the day before breakfast.
Nuns decorated the Mother House with flowers, portraits of Teresa and lights. One wall decoration read, “Saint Teresa of Calcutta Pray for Us.”
The sisters of the Order, who don’t watch TV or use mobile phones, made an exception as they all remained glued to specially-arranged large screens.
Around 300 of them gathered from nearby homes to watch the canonisation ceremony live. A large number of foreign visitors also thronged the nun quarters.
At the Mother House, headquarters of the congregation and home of the Saint, three large TV screens were brought from outside so that nuns from different homes and churches can gather at one place and watch the sainthood ceremony. “We do not have TV or mobile phones here. Only when we have to screen some documentary for visitors then some screen is put up,” one of the nuns at the Mother House told PTI. Two of the TV screens which beamed CTV (Vatican Television Centre) were open to visitors on the ground floor of the three-storeyed building while another one was kept upstairs where the nuns were glued on.
