Mother teresa photo

The most famous photo of the late Mother Teresa was almost never seen by the public. Baton Rouge photographer Marie Bissell Constantin shot a roll of film of the beloved nun when Mother Teresa came to Louisiana's capital city in 1985 to open a facility that would serve as a soup kitchen, homeless shelter and haven for unwed mothers. Constantin stored those negatives, along with many others, inside a shoe box in a closet. "Unbeknownst to me I had taken this beautiful photo," she said. That photo of Mother Teresa, an iconic image that captured her dancing eyes and joyous smile, ultimately became the official portrait for her beatification in 2003 in St. Peter's Square, where Constantin watched from the Vatican roof as it was unveiled before more than 300,000 faithful. "I was numb," she said. And now, as the Sunday canonization of the "angel of the Calcutta slums" takes place, Constantin has published a book about what became a 13-year journey with the soon-to-be saint called "Finding Calcutta: Memoirs of a Photographer." Much like Constantin's famous portrait of Mother Teresa, her photography career was also an accident. Constantin was a 32-year-old LSU journalism student working at the Catholic Student Center when a priest asked for volunteers to take photos of a visiting bishop. Newslook "Nobody wanted to do it, so I borrowed a camera and volunteered," she said. "I was kind of shocked because when I saw the photos I thought they looked nice. I found I had a natural sense o...

The two miracles attributed to Mother Teresa were ones of healing. But the Vatican requires more than someone shouting, "I'm cured!" and thanking Mother Teresa to believe that a miraculous recovery has taken place. Cases of reported curative miracles are examined by the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Causes of Saints and a committee of medical specialists. If it can be shown the recovery fell outside the laws of nature with no scientific explanation, the prospective saint's intercession with God is considered to have brought about a cure. As the last step, the Pope gives his approval that a miracle occurred. Mother Teresa had a few 'almost' miracles Many of the proposed miracles associated with Mother Teresa didn't meet church guidelines. Among the cases that were considered but not deemed miraculous were: A French girl who said touching a medallion from Mother Teresa healed ribs she'd broken in a car accident — but this healing did not happen quickly enough to be seen as miraculous. A Palestinian girl recovered from bone cancer after seeing Mother Teresa in a dream — but the church waits for several years to ensure there is no recurrence in cancer cases, as a miraculous recovery will be permanent. In addition, an improvement in someone's condition, even if there's no medical cause for the amelioration, wouldn't fit the parameters for a miracle, as the healing should be complete. And a cure must be due to the intercession of Mother Teresa — so any recovery that inv...

(1910-1997) Who Was Mother Teresa? Nun and missionary Mother Teresa, known in the Catholic church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, devoted her life to caring for the sick and poor. Born in Macedonia to parents of Albanian-descent and having taught in India for 17 years, Mother Teresa experienced her "call within a call" in 1946. Her order established a hospice; centers for the blind, aged and disabled; and a leper colony. In 1979, Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work. She died in September 1997 and was beatified in October 2003. In December 2015, Mother Teresa at a hospice for the destitute and dying in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, 1969. Photo: Terry Fincher/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Mother Teresa’s Family and Young Life Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, the current capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The following day, she was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Mother Teresa’s parents, Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, were of Albanian descent; her father was an entrepreneur who worked as a construction contractor and a trader of medicines and other goods. The Bojaxhius were a devoutly Catholic family, and Nikola was deeply involved in the local church as well as in city politics as a vocal proponent of Albanian independence. In 1919, when Mother Teresa — then Agnes — was only eight years old, her father suddenly fell ill and died. While the cause of his death remains unknown, many have speculated that political enemies poi...

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