A reliquary containing Blessed Mother Teresa’s blood will be among the relics on display at Baltimore area churches for three days this week beginning Wednesday, June 30.
Highlighting the three-day spiritual event will be a Mass celebrated at the Basilica in downtown Baltimore on Friday, July 2 at 12:10 p.m. Bishop Denis Madden will celebrate the Mass at America’s First Cathedral, where Mother Teresa last visited in May 1996, a little more than a year before her death.
In addition to her blood, the candidate for sainthood’s crucifix, rosary and sandals will also be in Baltimore as part of a tour of North America organized by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in honor of the 100th anniversary of her birth. The Missionaries of Charity operate Gift of Hope, a hospice center for AIDS patients located in the former convent of St. Wenceslaus Church in E. Baltimore. The relics will be received at Gift of Hope on June 30 at 4 p.m. and may be venerated by visitors until 8:30 p.m.
An 8 a.m. Mass will be celebrated at St. Wenceslaus on July 1, followed by a holy hour and veneration of relics until noon. That evening, the relics will be transported to Our Lady of Pompei in Highlandtown where a 5:30 p.m. Mass in Spanish will be celebrated, followed by a holy hour, rosary and veneration until 8:30 p.m. Mass will be celebrated at 8 a.m. at St. Leo in Little Italy on July 2, followed by a holy hour, rosary and veneration until 11 a.m.
Mother Teresa first visited Baltimore in 1992 to celebrate the opening of the AIDS hospice. During that visit she said, “Any man, woman or child feeling unloved with nowhere to go is welcome to come here. I have no gold or silver to give you but I’m giving you my sisters.”
Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 at the age of 87.