Mother Teresa’s Final Journey

This city bade farewell to Mother Teresa today with all the pomp and flourish it could muster, pouring forth its thanks to a woman whose work inspired the world.

On a hot and muggy morning, orderly crowds numbering tens of thousands lined the streets to wait for her flag-draped open coffin to wend its way through the slums she worked to save.

People stood 10 deep in some places along the route of the funeral procession, many clutching children and all they own as they awaited a fleeting glimpse of the nun known throughout the city as simply “Mother.” Some, tattered and filthy, had ridden for days on trains and buses and slept in the streets to claim a place.

The procession concluded with a funeral Mass at the Netaji Indoor Stadium conducted in English by a papal delegation led by the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and other high-ranking clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Mother Teresa of Calcutta lit a flame of love, which her spiritual daughters and sons must now carry forward,” Sodano said. “The world badly needs the light of that flame. . . .

“The homage which we are paying . . . will be in vain if men and women of goodwill everywhere do not take up where she left off,” he said.

The Mass--watched on television by millions around the world--was attended by a congregation of about 12,000 that included scores of foreign dignitaries, among them First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and members of a congressional delegation.

President Kocheril Raman Narayanan and Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral led the Indian delegation. Others in attendance included Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, Jordan’s Queen Noor, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina Wajed, British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, Spain’s Queen Sofia and Aline Chretien, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

The altar was draped with a banner that read: “Works of Love Are Works of Peace.”

There were hymns and readings in Bengali and Hindi, two of the main languages of India. A hymn toward the end of the service, “Abide With Me,” was sung in English.

The service closed with a series of addresses, including one by Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa’s successor as head of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity, the order she began 47 years ago.

“Because of [Mother Teresa’s] loving trust in God, and her total surrender to him with joy, the Lord has left millions and millions of miracles of love, which we have witnessed, all over the world,” Sister Nirmala said.

After the addresses, wreaths were set beside Mother Teresa’s bier by representatives from around the world. Mrs. Clinton placed a wreath for the United States.

During the procession that preceded the Mass, Mother Teresa’s body passed through the crowds accompanied by the quiet singing of 400 white-frocked nuns from the Roman Catholic order she founded.

“I will miss Mother so much,” said Arun Nath, leaning on a cane to support his twisted legs. “She always tried to help me.”

Gurkha soldiers armed with long, curved daggers and members of the Rajputana Rifles Brigade, resplendent in red turbans, marched behind the military vehicles heading the procession. Bagpipe music from a police band was all but drowned out at times by the clattering helicopters overhead.

Other military guards, clad in khaki, lined both sides of the procession route, holding back crowds straining for a last look at the diminutive woman who won the admiration of the world.

At times, the crowds broke ranks to walk alongside the gun carriage, pulled by a military truck, that carried the body of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner. It was the same gun carriage that had carried Mohandas K. Gandhi after his death in 1948.

This morning’s procession honored a life’s work that transcended religious lines and brought comfort to forgotten people.

Included in the procession was a bus carrying some of those people--orphans, homeless individuals, lepers and others crippled by disease and misfortune.

After the Mass and state funeral ceremony at the sports stadium, the cortege was to take Mother Teresa to a private burial in a courtyard at Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity.

“This is the place [where] she loved to be. This is her home,” said Sister Nirmala, who took over the order last March.

Sister Nirmala has promised that the work begun by Mother Teresa will go on. The Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to helping the poor and dying, operate nearly 600 houses with 4,000 sisters around the world.

“Mother is still alive in our hearts,” Sister Nirmala said, “and she is praying for us in heaven.”

Since her death Sept. 5 at 87, the woman born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu has been honored in every corner of the world.

In Washington, the Senate declared Saturday a day of recognition. In Moscow, hundreds queued up to write in a book of condolences.

At the Vatican, Sodano said before leaving for the funeral that he believes that Mother Teresa will someday be declared a saint.

It is here in her city, though, that the reaction to her death has been the most emotional.

Calcutta, a vast, impoverished metropolis where tragedy abounds on every corner, was Mother Teresa’s home for more than 50 years. It is where she became famous as “the saint of the gutters.”

The city is home to several of her clinics, including the Nirmal Hriday (Immaculate Heart) Home for the Dying Destitutes.

In the eight days after her death, hundreds of thousands of people lined up to pay their respects as Mother Teresa lay in state inside St. Thomas Church.

St. Thomas was deluged with flowers and wreaths, and the scent of the blossoms wafted through it. Local flower shops said they could no longer satisfy demand.

The city’s reaction to Mother Teresa’s death overwhelmed its own capabilities. Newspapers reported that Mother Teresa’s body, after so many days, had begun to deteriorate from the heat. But the people kept coming.

On Friday, the line to see her body at the church stretched more than a mile in the rain.

When soldiers closed the church doors this morning to prepare for the procession, scores of mourners who had been waiting for hours to view the body raised their voices in protest. However, police persuaded them to leave, and there was no violence.

By midday today, the throngs of people made this already dense metropolis virtually impassable.

“Mother’s heart was so pure,” sobbed Barnali Das as she stood on a street corner in the neighborhood where Mother Teresa worked. Four years ago, Das served as a volunteer in the Missionaries of Charity’s orphanage, cleaning clothes and bathing babies.

“She had the eyes of a newborn baby,” Das said. “So full of love.”

Mother Teresa’s funeral cortege made its way down streets decked with signs celebrating her life and work. “Mother, You Will Always Be Near Us--Income Tax Department,” read a sign hanging from one building.

“We Shall Always Remember You Mother--India Trading Oil Co.,” read another.

The city’s streets were packed with newcomers, people who had traveled by subway, train, taxi and bus.

Sumitra Seha brought his 17-year-old niece, Biyla, stricken by polio and supported by leg braces and large wooden crutches.

Raju Das, 29, brought his family from Thakore, a town outside Calcutta. Three months ago, Mother Teresa blessed his 3-year-old daughter, Nisa. “We have come to see a living saint,” Das said.

The days before the funeral offered opportunities for missionaries and capitalists alike: Street vendors cooked pakoras, an Indian snack, and peddled color photos of Mother Teresa.

In two days, a group of volunteers from a local Assembly of God church handed out 27,000 Gideon Bibles--in English, Hindi and Bengali.

Loknatch Naik, 32, sold about 2,000 white lotus blossoms.

“I have mixed feelings,” said Naik, a homeless man whose flowers sell for about a penny a piece. “I am very sorry that Mother is dead, but it’s very good for business.”

Those who came to see Mother Teresa were adherents of myriad faiths. Mohammed Zahid, a Muslim who lives in an apartment next to Mother House, paused to describe how the nun routinely came to the aid of his family over the years. Twice, Zahid said, she interceded on behalf of family members when hospitals refused to treat them.

“It did not matter to her what religion we are,” Zahid said.

In addition to the first lady and other political leaders, several everyday people touched by Mother Teresa made the trip from the United States. One was Sharon Howard, a Louisville, Ky., resident. Her now deceased child, Angel, afflicted with Down’s syndrome, was embraced by Mother Teresa when she visited Louisville in 1988.

“I was crying so hard I couldn’t even see,” Howard said. “Mother Teresa is the epitome of Christian love. I just came to say goodbye.”

Just down the street from the site of what will become Mother Teresa’s grave, the nuns of the Missionaries of Charity tended the orphanage, which, according to the sign in the lobby, housed 439 children. In one wing, toddlers played with one another and embraced the legs of any visitors who dropped in. Sister Hazua, who tends to the children, looked out over the play area and drew the inspiration to continue.

“There is a joy in this room,” she said. “This is why we are here.”

Times staff writer Eric Malnic in Los Angeles contributed to this story.