Vasai celebrates

When Mother Teresa was canonised at the Vatican on Sunday, people of Vasai had reason to cheer.  For, she had visited Vasai taluk, one of the oldest diocese in the country, in the mid-eighties. 

Of the four saints from India, including St Teresa, one of them hails from Vasai in Palghar district, which adjoins Mumbai and shares the  border with Gujarat. Such was the importance of Vasai, located around 60 km from downtown Mumbai, that even Pope John Paul II visited the locality in 1986.

“It’s a great day for us,” said a local,Pascal Lopes, who has over 100 stamps of St Teresa from various countries. “In 1980, India Post scripted history when it released a stamp on Mother Teresa when she was alive, making her (then) the first and only personality to be so uniquely honoured,” said Lopes.

It is also a matter of pride that the first church in India to be named after St Teresa is located in Vasai taluk. It was built in 2007 near Virar station and named Blessed Mother Teresa Church.

On Sunday, it was renamed St Teresa of Kolkata Church. Archbishop Dr Felix Machado, Bishop of Vasai, led the prayers.