The Catholic Church, wherein lay Mother's loyalty, has now begun the official pro-cess of her canonization. It is quite curious that the Church has to delve into this tedious process before it can declare anyone a saint. The Church has thousands of canonized saints, and thousand others, called ``Venerable'', who could not make it to sainthood.

The rite of declaring a saint exists only in the Catholic Church, as other churches think it improper to confer such astatus on a human being. More importantly, they believe that Jesus Christ alone is worthy of worship and adoration. While Catholics believe the same, they hold that they only venerate saints and do not worship them as deities.

Down through the centuries, many Christians have lived saintly lives, not because of the pomp and glory that accompanies a saint, but because of their desire to live in union with Jesus. Mother constantly reiterated that what she did was primarily due to her love for Jesus.

For the Catholic Church, however, it is not enough that one is seen to be holy. One's holiness must be proved and this happens through the process of canonization. Thus when a person is perceived by the public to have lived like a saint, they begin to pray and venerate that person. When the devotion spreads and five years after the death of that person have passed, the local bishop submits an application to the Church authorities, giving his reasons as to why a person of his diocese should be considered forsainthood. Once the cause of beatification is introduced, the person is declared ``Venerable''. The Church then begins its investigations into the life, writings (including letters written by him or her) and virtues of the person concerned.

As this continues, more and more people begin to pray to the Venerable. After several years, if the results of findings are positive, and if it can be proved scientifically that the person has actually performed at least two miracles, the title of ``Blessed'' is conferred. Now devotion of the Beatified by the faithful increases further.

After a person is declared Blessed, the most crucial investigation begins. It has to be proved again scientifically and beyond doubt that the Blessed has actually performed two more miracles after beatification. During the whole process of investigations, there is one assigned from the Church who is called, ``the Devil's Advocate'', whose main job is to counter and challenge all the positive claims about the person made by others. Incase of Mother Teresa, there are already some allegations that she received money from military dictators; that she did not try to alleviate the pain of the sufferers and so on. It is also possible that if the findings raise some serious questions, the whole process of beatification, leading to canonization, can either be delayed or dropped altogether.

In the final analysis, it is not important whether she emerges unscathed through these allegations or not, but that in Mother Teresa we have a model of a person to imitate, who totally dedicated her life in the service of the poorest. Ma Teresa in heaven will certainly be more pleased, not if the process of her canonization is expedited, but if more of us could learn to care for and share with the poor of the world.