Hundreds of people lined up the weekend of July 17-18 for a glimpse of Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s sandals and rosary and a chance to make contact with a woman many believe was a saint. Relics of Mother Teresa, who was declared “blessed” by Pope John Paul II in 2003, visited Chicago as part of a tour in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Albanian nun’s birth on Aug. 26. The relics were available for veneration July 17 at St. Procopius Parish, 17th Street and Allport in the Pilsen neighborhood, and July 18 at St. John Cantius Parish, 825 N. Carpenter St., and at the Missionaries of Charity convent at 2325 W. 24th Place. Two first-class relics At St. Procopius, Missionaries of Charity held the two first-class relics — drops of blood and a strand of hair — in reliquaries for pilgrims to venerate with a kiss or a touch. The sandals and rosary, second-class relics, were displayed in a glass case. (First-class relics are parts of a saint’s body and second-class relics are items used by the saint. There are also third-class relics, which is something touched to a first-class relic.) The sisters also distributed Mother Teresa medals and prayer cards to people as they passed the relics. Most people then stopped in the pews to pray. Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Garcia- Siller celebrated the Saturday vigil Mass and preached about Mother Teresa and her example of hospitality. Her vocation, the bishop said, “invites all of us to have a heart for the poor.” Reflecting on the Gospel story of Martha and Mary, Bishop Garcia- Siller said, the point is not the division between the active Martha and the contemplative Mary. The point is the welcome that they gave Jesus, and the welcome that Jesus gives to all. “He died for the salvation of each and every human being,” Bishop Garcia-Siller said. And Mother Teresa could see him in each and every human being, especially in the poor, he said. Concern for poor It was concern for the poor that led Nancy Nugent to St. Procopius. Nugent, a charismatic Catholic who donates to international charitable groups in an effort to relieve poverty on a small scale, had recently watched a movie about the life of Mother Teresa, when her friend and fellow religious education teacher Phyllis Schmidt called to tell her that the relics would visit Chicago and to invite her to visit them. It was a message from the Blessed Mother, Nugent said. “I talk to the Blessed Mother all the time,” she said. Schmidt said she came because “I wanted to feel as close as possible to Mother Teresa. When the sister held the relic up to me, I had this feeling of wanting to laugh and cry at the same time.” Paulina Barrios was “thrilled” to have the relics in the church where she was raised. “I’m here to be supportive and to be blessed by her,” said Barrios, who is now a member of St. Roman Parish but grew up in St. Procopius Parish and graduated from St. Procopius High School. Her mother, who still lives in the parish, was there to greet Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she visited Chicago in the 1980s. Feeling her presence Barrios said she felt the deceased nun’s presence in the relics, especially the worn-out sandals. “The sandals represent her hard work. I can see her going around, doing things for her people. It’s just really, really a blessing that they are here,” she said. Tom Naughton brought his son Patrick and his daughter Maggie to St. Procopius because his father, Noel Naughton, donated his time and skill to renovate the building that turned into the Missionaries of Charity contemplative house here. “He enjoyed helping the nuns,” Tom Naughton said. The Couri family also came, driving in from Elmhurst at the invitation of the sisters. Parents Brian and Eileen have four children, including 12-yearold Cecilia, who suffers from a disease in which her immune system attacks her central nervous system. Missionaries of Charity had brought a relic of Mother Teresa to their home in the past to pray with and over Cecilia. At the time, Eileen Couri said, doctors were unable to find a location to place a central line in her body except for her jugular vein. After praying with Mother Teresa’s relic, other sites opened up — an occurrence for which her doctors had no explanation. Thousands came Hundreds of people also worshiped at each of four Masses on July 18 at St. John Cantius, with veneration of the relics available afterward. Cardinal George venerated the relics there. Following the Sunday Masses at St. John Cantius, the relics were taken to a Missionaries of Charity convent in Chicago for veneration. The relics came to the Midwest after a similar whirlwind tour of the East Coast. In the days leading up to the Chicago visit they were in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Peoria, Ill., and Gary, Ind. On July 19, they went to Minneapolis, and from there to Winnipeg, Canada. Who was Mother Teresa? Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born in what is now Macedonia, of Albanian ancestry, on Aug. 26, 1910, and baptized Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu. She experienced a call to the religious life at 12 years old. She went to Ireland at age 18 to enter the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the Loreto Sisters, and less than four months later, on Jan. 6, 1929, arrived in Calcutta as postulant with the religious name Teresa. She made first vows as a sister in 1931 and final vows in 1937, after which she was known as Mother Teresa. During these years, she taught in Catholic schools in Calcutta. By 1944, she was principal of St. Mary’s School and in charge of the Daughters of St. Anne, an Indian religious community affiliated with the Loreto Sisters. On Sept. 10, 1946, while on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling, India, she received the “call within a call” to serve the “poorest of the poor.” By the end of 1948, she had left Loreto, donned the white, blue-bordered sari that became the habit of Missionaries of Charity, visited the Calcutta slums and started her first slum school. Three months later, she welcomed her first candidate, and had 12 sisters by Oct. 7, 1950, when the Missionaries of Charity were officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta. In the ensuing years, she opened homes for the sick and dying, leprosy sufferers, and others, all while experiencing a “terrible darkness within” that lasted the rest of her days. She died Sept. 5, 1997. The Missionaries of Charity family now includes active and contemplative sisters and brothers and an order of priests. All together, at the time of her death, there were more than 4,000 Missionaries of Charity serving 120 countries. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 19, 2003.