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Relic of St Teresa of Calcutta visits Belfast for Irish tour

The relic – a muslin cloth marked with the blood of the saint and encased in a cross – was brought to St Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street last night. Picture by Cliff Donaldson
The relic – a muslin cloth marked with the blood of the saint and encased in a cross – was brought to St Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street last night. Picture by Cliff Donaldson The relic – a muslin cloth marked with the blood of the saint and encased in a cross – was brought to St Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street last night. Picture by Cliff Donaldson

A RELIC of St Teresa of Calcutta has arrived in Belfast as part of a tour of veneration across Ireland.

The relic – a muslin cloth marked with the blood of the saint and encased in a cross – was brought to St Patrick’s Church on Donegall Street last night, where mass of veneration was held.

The tour was organised by the Knights of Columbanus, who have been loaned the relic by the Mother Teresa Centre of the Missionaries of Charity.

Born in 1910 in Skopje, Macedonia, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu - who would later become known as Mother Teresa - moved to Ireland at the age of 18 and joined the Loreto Order.

In 1929 she moved to India to work with the poor, before founding the Missionaries of Charity order in 1950, which by 2012 had 4,500 sisters working in 133 countries.

Mother Teresa died in September 1997 and was canonised in September 2016, becoming St Teresa of Calcutta.

The relic was welcomed at St Patrick’s Church by Bishop Anthony Farquhar and Fr Eugene O’Neill, the church’s administrator.

12 June 2017 - Church officals at St Patrick's await the arrival of a relic of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997 and was made a Saint in 2016. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.
12 June 2017 - Church officals at St Patrick's await the arrival of a relic of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997 and was made a Saint in 2016. Picture by Cliff Donaldson. 12 June 2017 - Church officals at St Patrick's await the arrival of a relic of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997 and was made a Saint in 2016. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.

Speaking at last night’s service, which was attended by hundreds of parishioners, Fr O’Neill said that Mother Teresa was "arguably the most influential figure of the last number of decades".

"Just think of how many people are alive because of what she did," he said.

"And to think, this woman walked the very streets of this city. Tonight we welcome this relic and we venerate it, like we do other saints, because saints show us what we can be at our very best."

During its time in Belfast, the relic will also visit Corpus Christ Church in west Belfast where St Teresa once worked in the community for 18 months in the early 1970s, alongside four other nuns from her Missionaries of Charity order.

12 June 2017 - A relic of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997 and was made a Saint in 2016, is carried into St Patrick's. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.
12 June 2017 - A relic of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997 and was made a Saint in 2016, is carried into St Patrick's. Picture by Cliff Donaldson. 12 June 2017 - A relic of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who died in 1997 and was made a Saint in 2016, is carried into St Patrick's. Picture by Cliff Donaldson.