Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born in Skopje (modern-day Republic of Macedonia) on August 26, 1910 and died in Calcutta, India on September 5, 1997.
The process of Canonization is quite extensive, involving the approval of two miracles which are attributed to the intercession of the person who is being considered.
In 2002, the Holy Father recognized the healing of an Indian woman as the miracle needed to beatify Mother Teresa of Calcutta. That healing occurred on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. It involved a non-Christian woman in India who had a huge abdominal tumor and woke up to find the tumor gone. Members of the Missionaries of Charity prayed for their founder's intervention to help the sick woman. Mother Teresa was beatified (the recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven, and that person's capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who ask for that person to pray for them) on October 19, 2003 by Saint John Paul II, just six years after her death.
The case submitted by the Postulation of Mother Teresa's Cause for Canonization concerns a miraculous healing that took place in 2008 in Santos, Brazil. The case involves a man having a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses with triventricular hydrocephalus.
The various treatments undertaken were not effective, and thus his condition continuously worsened. By 9 December 2008 the patient was in an acute clinical state: obstructive hydrocephalus; he was in a coma and dying. It was decided to proceed with emergency surgery. At 6:10pm the patient was taken to the operating room, but the Anesthesiologist could not perform the tracheal intubation for anesthesia.
Meanwhile, from March 2008, the patient's wife continuously sought the intercession of Blessed Mother Teresa for her husband. To her own prayers of intercession were joined those of her relatives, friends, and the parish priest, all of whom were praying for a miraculous cure through the intercession of Mother Teresa.
On this same day, 9 December 2008, when the patient entered into serious crisis and had to be taken for an emergency operation, intensified prayers were addressed to Blessed Teresa for his recovery. Precisely between the hours of 6:10pm and 6:40pm the patient's wife went to her parish church, and along with the pastor, turned to Blessed Teresa begging with greater determination for the cure of her dying husband.
At 6:40pm the neurosurgeon returned to the operating room and found the patient inexplicably awake and without pain. The patient asked the doctor, what I am doing here? The next morning, December 10, 2008, when examined at 7:40pm, the patient was fully awake and without any headache; he was asymptomatic with normal cognition.
The patient, now completely healed, resumed his work as a mechanical engineer without any particular limitation. In addition, it should be emphasized that despite the tests that showed a state of sterility due to the intense and prolonged immunosuppression and antibiotics, the couple have two healthy children born in 2009 and 2012.
The official date for Mother Teresa's canonization will be announced in the near future. It is anticipated that it may take place in September of next year, coinciding with the date of her entry into heaven.
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