Samar woman on Mother Teresa: She smelled of flowers

MANILA, Philippines - She smelled of flowers.

This was how a woman from Calbayog, Samar described Blessed Mother Teresa when she met the would-be saint almost 30 years ago.

Mother Teresa will be declared a saint Sunday in a ceremony at the Vatican to be led by Pope Francis.

Judith Ignacio-Whuillas told CBCPNews she was just 11 years old when Mother Teresa visited Calbayog from Dec. 31, 1986 to January 1987 to experience the Filipinos’ simple way of life.

“I can’t forget her scent. It was not from perfume. It was a scent similar to flowers. And her hands, though wrinkled, were very soft,” Whuillas said, adding she and her family picked up Mother Teresa at the airport.

The Nobel laureate nun visited the house of Whuillas’ grandmother, the late Generosa Bernardo, located on Rosales Boulevard.

“My cousins and I were peeping as Mother Teresa and lola were talking. We would go up and down the stairs, play and run around while they were in a room, discussing something,” she said.

The Bernardos served Mother Teresa and her companions – Msgr. Basiling Rosales and a nun from a local office of the Missionary of Charity – the famous special halo-halo and pancit palabok from the family-owned restaurant.

Ma. Perpetua Socorro Ignacio-Cabatan, who was 14 years old at that time, recalled their grandmother gave Mother Teresa an envelope containing P 5,000 as donation.

Generosa was an active parishioner and a supporter of the Missionaries of Charity.

Pedro Panoy, child facilitator at the St. Expeditus ECCD Center, said that before Mother Teresa left Calbayog she visited and prayed over a dying child in Barangay Oquendo. The child later recovered.

Mother Teresa died on Sept. 5, 1997 at the age of 87. She was beatified by the late pope, St. John Paul II, on Oct. 19, 2003, just six years after her death, waiving the three years waiting period.

Born Agnes Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa had two major apostolates: to care for the poor and attend to the sick.

Former Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Archbishop Oscar Cruz first met Mother Teresa in 1976, when she visited the country to put up her Missionaries of Charity.

“She is a saint period because her life was an example. She lived a simple life,” Cruz said.

As an auxiliary bishop of Manila in 1976, Cruz was asked by then Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin to pick up Mother Teresa from the airport and bring her to a parish in Tayuman, where a room in the rectory was available for her.

Cruz said although he was familiar with Mother Teresa, it was the first time he met her face-to-face. She was wearing her white sari with blue trimmings and a pair of sandals. Her clothes looked worn out but they were clean. In her right arm was a bundle wrapped in a piece of cloth measuring about a square foot.

“I asked her, ‘Where’s your luggage so I could carry it?’ She replied, ‘This is my luggage,’ pointing to the bundle in her arm. I did not smile but deep inside I was amazed by her simplicity,” Cruz said.