Special day for Missionaries of Charity

The Missionaries of Charity in Trinidad will today, view the live ceremony of the beatification of the Blessed Theresa of Calcutta which takes place at the Vatican, Rome, on cable television from their home base on Church Street, Success Village, Laventille. Today marks the 53rd anniversary of the missionary group, which was founded in 1950 by Mother Theresa of Calcutta. In celebration of the occasion, the local group will host a Thanksgiving Mass on Thursday, October 23, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Independence Square, Port-of-Spain at 5 pm. The service will be conducted by Papal Nuncio Emil Paul Tscagrrig.

“The Blessed Theresa, what we now call her, not Mother Theresa, lived a holy life. She sacrificed and cared for others, serving the poorest of poor and this is how we remember her. The beatification is the stage before she is approved for sainthood, a course that God has chosen for her,” said head of the Missionaries of Charity, Sr Sobel, speaking from the group’s home base. Sr Sobel is one of four sisters of The Missionaries of Charity. Sr Sobel, a native of India, began her missionary journey many years ago. Her first assignment was Rome, then Venezuela. She was thereafter assigned to Trinidad in 1991 where she spent the allotted missionary stay of three years. “I then travelled to Guyana where I stayed for 10 yeas and returned to Trinidad this year,” Sr Sobel said. She is joined by two sisters, also from India, and another from Africa. They make up a worldwide body of 4,540 members of the Missionaries of Charity, serving in 132 nations.