Mother Teresa's Beatification

by Kim Farnell and Deborah Houlding

Mother Teresa was beatified by Pope John Paul II at an open air mass Sunday 19th October at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican in a two hour mass beginning at 10:00 am CEDT. The Roman Catholic Church considers the ceremony the final step before sainthood.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje (41N35, 21E30) now Republic of Macedonia, in 1910. Her given birth date is usually 27 August but relatives who still live in Skopje emphasise that she was born on 26 of August and baptised August 27 in the Roman Catholic Church in Skopje and that day is counted as her date of birth. See http://www.mymacedonia.net/links/tereza.htm

She was born against a backdrop of Uranus in Capricorn opposing Neptune in Cancer, a time subject to revolution of spiritual and visionary ideals. Any strong contact between these two planets, when personalised, can result in what Rob Hand describes as "interest in working with the poor, the sick and the downtrodden to improve their lot in life" and displays difficulty in allowing suffering in the world. (Planets in Transit, p.412). Jupiter sits on the square of Neptune, illustrating her ability to magnify these concerns in the eyes of the world.

Mother Teresa died in Kolkata (aged 87) on 5 September 1997, as transiting Neptune opposed its natal position and transiting Saturn opposed natal Jupiter to complete a grand cross fixated on making such idealistic principles manifest in the structured world. Jupiter was exact on the trine of its natal position, depicting the perfect flowering of mass attention upon her work.

Another dominant factor in Mother Teresa's nativity is the Sun-Mars conjunction in Virgo, grounded by the trine of Saturn in Taurus, showing a willingness to fight for her beliefs and endure hostile living conditions with stoic fortitude. She arrived in Calcutta in 1929 as a teaching nun with the Irish order Sisters of Loreto. Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity order in 1949, after what she called an inspiration from God to care for the world's most destitute and sick. With 703 houses in 132 countries, the religious order is considered to be the fastest growing in the Catholic Church. She and her sisters dressed and lived like India's poor, and entered Calcutta's slums to provide care for the sick, the hungry and the dying. She shot to international fame in 1969 after Malcolm Muggeridge made a film about her. In 1979 Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize. By the time she died in 1997 she had become India's most celebrated figure and was given a state funeral. Her beatification, the quickest in modern times, will be followed by her canonisation in two years' time, making her the first Indian citizen to be made a saint by the Catholic church. The Pope had to approve a single miracle before her beatification. That honour went to Monica Bersa, a woman from a remote village 250 miles north of Calcutta, who claimed a tumour disappeared three years ago after nuns pressed a medallion blessed by Mother Teresa against her stomach. Her doctors insisted her tubercular abdominal cyst had been cured with anti-TB drugs.

Pope John Paul II proclaimed Mother Teresa blessed in response to the petition pronounced by the Archbishop of Calcutta, Lucas Sirkar. The banner bearing her image on the facade of St Peter's Basilica was immediately unfurled. her feats day will be September 5th - the date of her death. Only Saint Francis, canonised by Pope Innocent IX one year after his death, has enjoyed such a recognition more rapidly.

The contacts between Jupiter and Venus in a ceremony known as 'beautification' are quite stunning and seem to capture the true spiritual essence of that term. As the mass began, Jupiter culminated on the sextile of Venus, mirroring the Venus-Jupiter sextile in Mother Teresa's nativity, (further highlighted by the 9th house Moon's passage over her natal Venus), and captured in the physical environment by the 43,000 flowers that decorated the esplanade in front of the church. With the culminating Jupiter falling upon Mother Teresa's Sun-Mars conjunction and such a rich profusion of planets and contacts that bring amplification and public attention towards religious matters, the scene was one of phenomenal interest and support by worldwide media and the local community.

Two hours before the Mass began Saint Peter's Square was already filled with people. It is estimated that the crowd was bigger than the Pontifical Prefecture had expected. They had issued 250,000 invitations but over 300,000 attended. A Mass celebrated by the Pope followed the beatification rite with a procession of people in Indian costume carrying flowers and candles to the altar. The esplanade in front of the church, where 100 Cardinals and 100 Bishops were sitting, was decorated with 43,000 flowers. The ceremony also crowned the 25th anniversary celebrations of John Paul II's papacy. Among the VIPs attending were Queen Fabiola of Belgium, President Jacques Chirac's wife Bernadette, and the former presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic, Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. But the prestige seats in the front rows were given to 2,000 down-and-outs who, after the service, were treated to lunch in the Vatican and waited on by diplomats.

A reliquary with drops of Mother Teresa's blood was later presented to the Pope. Indian women in saris and bearing bowls of water and flowers and burning incense danced in front of the altar to traditional Indian music. In his homily, the Pope called Mother Teresa "this courageous woman who I always felt was at my side". Communion was offered to the crowds by dozens of priests and assistants carrying white umbrellas against the sun. At midday, signalled by a peal of bells, the highly charged service blended into that of the Angelus prayer, with the crowds crying out at the conclusion: "Viva Il papa." At the end of the ceremony, the pontiff, still seated on his throne but aboard his new model of Popemobile, was driven round St Peter's Square to greet the waving crowds.

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