The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines warmly greeted the announcement from the Vatican that Mother Teresa was on her way to sainthood, with one bishop saying her canonisation will teach Filipinos to be more compassionate to the poor.
"This is a great joy for us. She founded [charity] houses here and she exemplifies selfless service, which is an antidote to the corruption and greed in our country and in the world," said Novaliches Bishop Emeritus Teodoro Bacani, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
For his part, Malolos Bishop Jose Oliveros said Mother Teresa's forthcoming sainthood was "great news" not only for the Filipinos but also for all the people in the world whom she touched with her mercy and charity work.
"Mother Teresa is a living image of God's mercy because she dedicated her life in the service of the poor and the abandoned," Oliveros said.
Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles noted that Filipinos have a special place in their heart for Mother Teresa who was very close to them. "She loved the poor and she had a lot to tell us still," Arguelles said, remembering the occasion when he escorted the late nun in one of her visits to the Philippines in 1978.
Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco said the late nun's canonisation was timely since the world needed more models "who live and work not for themselves but for others to glorify God."
"Love was best expressed in her whole life as a witness to Christ," Ongtioco said.
Pope Francis has approved the second miracle required to elevate Mother Teresa to sainthood, the Vatican confirmed on Friday.
The canonisation ceremony of one of the Catholic Church's most famous figures of the 20th century is expected to take place sometime late next year, possibly in the first week of September to coincide with the anniversary of her death, and during Francis' Holy Year of Mercy, Fox News reported.
The second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, according to the Vatican statement, involved a Brazilian man with a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses.
The man fell into a coma in a hospital in December 2008 with doctors unable to find a remedy to his illness as he lay on the bed dying. The patient's wife reportedly sought the intercession of Mother Teresa to cure her husband.
On Dec. 9, while the patient was being taken to the operating room for emergency surgery, his wife went to a church and, along with a pastor, pleaded with Mother Teresa to cure her husband.
To the doctors' utter amazement, 30 minutes after the patient arrived in the operating room, they found him awake and without pain.
The patient then asked the doctor, "What am I doing here?"
The man is now completely healed of his illness and has resumed his work as a mechanical engineer, the Vatican statement said.
Last September, the Vatican's medical commission voted unanimously that his cure was inexplicable in the light of current medical knowledge, attributing it to a miracle done through the intercession of Mother Teresa.
That was the second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa. The first one happened in 2003 when an Indian woman's prayers to the nun rid her of an incurable tumour.
Mother Teresa was subsequently beatified by Pope John Paul II, a step before sainthood.
Records show that Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in modern-day Macedonia to a Kosovar-Albanian family.
She left home at 18 and moved to Ireland and then to India in 1929.
In Calcutta, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, an organisation that has more than 4500 religious sisters in 500 institutions operating in some 100 countries.
Mother Teresa set up homes for prostitutes, battered women, orphanages for poor children and houses for those suffering from AIDS, the Catholic News Agency said.
She was a fierce defender of the unborn, and is known to have said, "If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God's love."
Mother Teresa died on Sept. 5, 1997 at the age of 87. At the time, her Calcutta, India-based Missionaries of Charity order had nearly 4,000 nuns running roughly 600 orphanages, soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics around the world.
