Calcutta pays its last homage at funeral of Mother Teresa

A city of millions has come to a standstill to take part in the last journey of the woman everybody knew as "Mother". Calcutta, forever linked with Mother Teresa, today says thank you and a final goodbye to a woman who gave more than 50 years of her life to the destitute, maimed and unloved.

In the early hours of this morning, as a million people began the journey to the city centre for the last tribute, candles were still burning at a small shrine outside the "Mother House". A young man stayed up all night to keep them glowing in front of pictures shrouded in white flowers. Above it a board was chalked with the message "World's loss is Heaven's gain".

It is here, where she started her first house in 1948, the year after Indian independence, that Mother Teresa will have her final restingplace. She is to be buried by midafternoon - mid-morning in Ireland - in the small chapel where each day at 6.30 a.m. her nuns begin their day with prayer.

For one Irish nun, who nursed Mother Teresa for the past eight months, today is an intensely emotional experience. "Every day in the past week has brought its own emotional impact," says Sister Nirmala Maria, from Co Donegal. But today "is so overwhelming because of our own personal loss, society's loss and because the whole world is identifying with this loss".

The oldest Irish nun in India began her training as a novice sister with Mother Teresa in the Loreto convent. Sister Marie-Therese Breen (89) from Dublin, who came to India in 1928, remembers the "ordinary simple girl who was very nice to talk to", and who gave no indication of what she would go on to do.

Sister Marie-Therese believes Mother Teresa deserved to be called a "living saint".

This city of chaotic traffic and endless noise is unusually quiet. Every taxi driver - and there are hundreds - has taken the day off. City centre buses have stopped and the underground railway, the only one in India, is bringing in thousands of mourners from the outskirts of the metropolis.

The roads have been sealed and thousands of soldiers have taken up positions along the bamboo barricades which mark the two-mile route from the church of St Thomas, where the 87-year-old nun has lain for a week.

The week began with the nuns giving a red rose from "Mother" to every mourner who filed past her glass casket. It ends with the city forced to import flowers from outside Calcutta because so many people have brought floral tributes. Even with all its festivals or "pujas", Calcutta has never used so many flowers.

There are many who disagreed with Mother Teresa's philosophy of relief work, rather than social development. Still more questioned her adamant opposition to contraception in a country where children are abused and abandoned daily and where the population grows by 20 million a year.

But in Calcutta the "saint of the gutter" is revered and the citizens see it as fitting that the gun carriage which brought the body of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of India, to his funeral pyre should be used today to bring "Mother" to her final resting place.

Mother Teresa brought the streets of Calcutta to the world's church and government leaders, who have been arriving since Thursday. Last night their entourages, flanked by police outriders, moved through the potholed streets and created havoc with the already over-burdened traffic. This morning hundreds of other visiting dignitaries have an easier arrival as they move in air-conditioned coaches through the still-deserted streets.

Flags on all State buildings will be flown at half-mast today as a mark of respect to Mother Teresa. The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, will celebrate a special Mass of remembrance for her at the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin this evening. The homily will be delivered by Father Norman Fitzgerald, formerly a Holy Ghost Missionary in Sierra Leone and now executive director of Refugee Trust. A book of condolence has been opened in the Pro-Cathedral.