Remembering Saint Mother Teresa’s visit to New Bedford

It was one of the most memorable visits to the South Coast. A woman who was known by many as a living saint before becoming one.

According to the Diocese of Fall River, Saint Mother Teresa arrived in New Bedford on June 14th, 1995, to visit with members of her Missionaries of Charity community who a few years earlier had come to New Bedford at the invitation of then Fall River Bishop Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap., to establish a convent and begin their ministry in the city.

A Mass to honor the visit of Mother Teresa was celebrated that day in St. Lawrence Martyr Church, New Bedford, which is located across the street from the Missionaries of Charity convent. Bishop O’Malley was principal celebrant and homilist of the Mass. At its conclusion, Mother Teresa addressed the congregation. An overflow crowd of hundreds and hundreds who were unable to fit into the church stood outside and listened to the Mass via outdoor speakers. The Mass was carried live on WLNE-TV, Channel 6, Providence, and many other regional and local media outlets.

Mother Teresa was born to an ethnic Albanian family in Skopje, in what is now part of Macedonia. She went to India in 1929 as a Sister of Loreto and became an Indian citizen in 1947. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950. Shortly after she died in 1997, St. John Paul II waived the usual five-year waiting period and allowed the opening of the process to declare her sainthood. She was beatified in 2003. The date chosen for her canonization, which was held in September of 2016, was the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death and the date previously established at the Vatican for the conclusion of the Year of Mercy pilgrimage of people like her who are engaged in works of mercy.