The Vatican has announced that the feast day of St. Teresa of Calcutta will be included in the General Roman Calendar for September 5, the anniversary of her death in 1997.
The Roman calendar marks the feast days that must be celebrated at Mass in a mandatory manner, unless they fall on a Sunday. Until now the feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta was optional.
The decree is from the Dicastery for Divine Worship, and was signed by the prefect, Cardinal Arthur Roche.
St. Teresa was canonized in 2016 by Pope Francis. The Argentine pontiff has always highlighted her ability to console those who suffer the most.
POPE FRANCIS
Throughout her existence, Mother Teresa was a generous dispenser of divine mercy. Taking care of all, she made herself available through welcoming and defending human life, the unborn, and the abandoned and discarded. She committed herself to the defense of life by proclaiming incessantly that the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most in need.
St. John Paul II had a close relationship with the saint, who he admired for her total dedication to the sick and the so-called last of the last.
JH
