While funeral arrangements were finalised for the world's most famous missionary, more than 100,000 people filed past the body of Mother Teresa of Calcutta yesterday as it lay under glass in the Church of St Thomas. Mother Teresa died last Friday, aged 87, after a heart attack.
On Saturday, Mrs Hillary Clinton will lead a delegation from the US Congress at the state funeral, which will be attended also by the Italian President, Mr Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.
A close friend of Mother Teresa's, Ms Sunita Kumar, said the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa were expected to attend, although this has not been confirmed.
The Minister for Defence, Mr David Andrews, will represent Ireland at the ceremony, which will be televised by RTE.
Regional leaders of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity have begun arriving from around the world. The order has some 2,500 nuns and 400 other religious in more than 100 countries.
On yesterday's flight from London to Calcutta a group of the order's nuns, brothers and priests from the United States were among the journalists and camera crews arriving for the first state funeral in India since the murder of the Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1989.
The nuns were shy about talking to the press, but one of the priests, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, described the death of the "Saint of the Gutter" as a great shock. "In the past when she was ill we were prepared and waiting to see what would happen but this time there was no warning."
Later, those religious joined more up to 100 nuns who had gathered in the church and sat at the altar saying the rosary in English as the crowds filed past, some having waited up to three hours for the briefest glance at Mother Teresa's body.
Queuing quietly in the streets near the church, they may have noticed a billboard hoarding put up by a Calcutta bank with the message: "Long Live Mother Teresa. She lives in the hearts of millions."
Some mourners cried and many offered flowers, including Mother Teresa's favourite white lotus. Nuns took the flowers, touched them against the white and blue edged stand on which the body of the Nobel Peace laureate lies and then brought them out to the gardens to be formed into the floral message: "Mother Teresa, we love you."
Concern has been expressed about the state of the embalmed body as the numbers of people filing into the church raised the temperature. Additional air-conditioners were installed along the walls and visiting hours have been cut back.
Sister Maria Nirmala, originally from Letterkenny, said there had been some swelling because of the fluids used to embalm Mother Teresa. Sister Maria, who looked after Mother Teresa for the past eight months, said: "I think she has been preparing us for her death for some time. She was a living miracle." Mother Teresa had serious illnesses during the past number of years. Sister Maria said her greatest wish before she died was to go to China and establish missionary houses there.
The funeral service will begin on Saturday at 9 a.m. when Mother Teresa's body is brought by gun carriage and with a military escort to Netaji stadium two miles from St Thomas's Church.
The cortege will include nuns, brothers and priests of the order, as well as volunteers, workers and some of the people assisted by the Missionaries of Charity, including leprosy victims, the homeless and a number of orphaned children.
Requiem Mass will be celebrated by a papal delegation led by Cardinal Simon Loudousamy at the indoor stadium with a capacity for 12,000 people.