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"If she hadn't sent me to Mexico, I wouldn't be a priest," says Rev. Silvaster Sarihaddula, pastor of St. John the Worker parish in West Winfield/Richfield Springs, of newly-canonized St. Teresa of Kolkata.

Father Sarihaddula first met St. Teresa in 1989. She told the young man that he would be relocating to Tijuana, Mexico, to become a priest.

"She didn't ask me if I wanted to go to Mexico or not," Father Sarihaddula told The Evangelist in an article written last year.

The priest and the new saint have a history, he said, noting that Mother Teresa wrote him several letters over the years. Father Sarihaddula began his religious career as a brother with the Missionaries of Charity, the congregation that Mother Teresa created in 1950.

When the priest heard that his old friend would be canonized Sept. 4, he left it up to God to indicate whether he should go to Rome for the ceremony. In prayer, he felt he should -- but organizing the trip wasn't quite as easy as he would have liked.

Because Father Sarihaddula is not a citizen of the United States, he had to first apply for a visa. Once he received it, he had to find a place to stay in Rome at a time when all the hotels were booked up.

After calling a cousin who's a priest in India for advice, Father Sarihaddula learned to his surprise that he also had a cousin who was a priest living in Rome. "We knew each other when we were kids," he said, but they hadn't talked in years.

With a place to stay with his cousin, Father Sarihaddula spent a week in Italy, visiting landmarks around Rome and the Vatican. He also received another surprise: He was approved to concelebrate the canonization Mass with Pope Francis. He helped distribute communion during the Mass.

Father Sarihaddula said it was the holiest experience he's ever had. Musing on seeing the estimated 120,000 pilgrims who came to the Mass, he said, "What a devotion."

While in Rome, the priest was able to reconnect with many Missionaries of Charity brothers, as well as his former superiors. "I saw seven of my cousins who came from India," he said, noting that it was as though they had a family reunion while celebrating the new saint.

St. Teresa was "personable and humble," said Father Sarihaddula, and she always had the same answer to everything: love and prayer.

"You felt you were with somebody really special in her presence," he told The Evangelist. "You felt her tenderness when you touched her hand."

He noted that he would never forget what she told her workers when they were serving people with leprosy: "You are serving suffering Jesus in them."[[In-content Ad]]

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