Mother Teresa's funeral was "one of the most wonderful experiences of my life", the Catholic Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, said yesterday. Speaking in Calcutta on his first visit to India, Dr Brady said the ceremony and procession showed "how much unity there was, the unity of nations and the interfaith unity" in the tributes by the Anglican, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and other faiths.
The Minister for Defence, Mr Andrews, who represented the Government at the ceremony, described it as an impressive and touching tribute to one of the icons of the century.
Dr Brady said the state funeral was a celebration of "a religious life lived so faithfully by a woman who trusted so much in the power of God rather than in her own power".
The Archbishop was one of the celebrants of the funeral Mass on Saturday. He also said Mass yesterday with the Bishop of Cloyne, Dr John Magee, at the Missionaries of Charity headquarters in Calcutta, known as "Mother House". The Mass was said in the chapel where Mother Teresa was buried in a raised tomb after a short private ceremony on Saturday.
Dr Brady commended the generosity of the Indian nation "to provide such a ceremony for someone who was not a member of the majority Hindu community". He also praised the Loreto order which has been in India since 1841 and "which played such a major part in Mother Teresa's vocation". The Nobel Laureate began her religious life in Dublin with the Loreto order, and completed her novitiate in the Loreto convent in the mountain resort of Darjeeling in India.
While in India, Dr Brady will visit a number of projects run by Irish religious orders, and yesterday met an Irish Carmelite, Sister Marie Therese Traynor, who takes her final vows in India as a contemplative nun in December.
Sister Nirmala Maria, an Irish member of Mother Teresa's order, said the ceremony and procession had been "overwhelming". The Donegal nun, who used to be the order's mistress of novices, said she was moved by the response of bystanders "who ran along with the cortege to try to be with Mother all the way. You could see that it was not just the international community. I think the hope that Mother Teresa gave people came across."
Mr Andrews said Mother Teresa had made a "huge contribution to the people of Calcutta" and the poor of the world and if she were to have an epitaph it would be that "she made a difference".
The Minister, who yesterday visited Howra, one of the poorest slum districts in the city, said that "when you see the condition of the people of Calcutta it is quite horrifying" and it showed Mother Teresa's commitment. Mr Andrews today will visit a project for street children in Calcutta which is assisted by the Irish aid agency GOAL. It is run jointly by Ms Edith Wilkins, an Irish woman who has been in India for 10 years, and Dr Samir Chowdry, from the Indian charity, Child in Need.
