Catholic devotees hold mass prayer to mark 106th birthday of Mother Teresa

Scores of Roman Catholic devotees from around the world on Friday attended a mass prayer at the Mother House in Calcutta, capital of West Bengal state in east India, as part of 106th birthday celebrations for Mother Teresa, an epa journalist reports.

Around 200 nuns and devotees gathered at the prayer hall this morning for the first of two prayer sessions today commemorating the late nun, who will be canonized on Sept. 4 to become Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

Derek O’Brien, party leader of West Bengal’s regional party Trinamool Congress, said on Tuesday that a new statue of Mother Teresa would be unveiled today at Archbishop’s House, the archdiocese of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to Albanian parents in Skopje, Macedonia, on Aug. 26, 1910, and in 1929 took her first vows at the Loreta convent in Darjeeling, northeast India.

She began missionary work in Calcutta in 1948 and two years later founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic congregation of nuns caring for the sick and poor.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, and following her death in 1997 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

The canonization ceremony will take place on Sept. 4 at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.