New York Albanian Community Prepares For Mother Teresa's Elevation To Sainthood

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The elevation of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to sainthood this weekend is promising to be a historic moment not to be missed in Rome and in New York.

As CBS2's Lou Young reported, Mother Teresa was born in Albania and has a deep connection to the quarter-million Albanian-Americans living in New York.

A bronze statue sits in a Bronx body shop awaiting the Sunday morning ceremony in Lower Manhattan.

The likeness of Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be unveiled as she is canonized as a saint, six time zones away in Vatican City.

Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj (D-The Bronx) said he expects a large crowd even before dawn.

"We need for figures like Mother Teresa in our lives. We need more people who are humanitarians," Gjonaj said. "So if it's 4 a.m., it's 4 a.m."

This statue will be in Battery Park Sunday and Monday and then will be moved to near the UN for the remainder of September before a permanent home is found. Followers of Mother Teresa say her elevation to sainthood transcends the Catholic Church and religion and is really about the essential element of compassion that makes us all human.

"What the church is doing -- it's just acknowledging what I believe, that she was a living saint," said Mother Teresa Pilgrim Gjon Chota.

Chota will be in Rome on Sunday with 80 other parishioners from an Albanian-Catholic Church in Hartsdale, Westchester County.

Dr. Snpresa Xhakli is already on her way to Rome. The Muslim woman and physician has traveled to Mother Teresa's former headquarters in India, studying a life worth emulating.

"I revere her as a person of value and a person that has dedicated her life to goodness," Xhakli said.

But Mother Teresa's life was not without struggle. Her private papers reveal inner anguish and feelings of spiritual darkness.

The church acknowledges that saints are holy, but not perfect – a guide for the rest of us through rough terrain, and a light that her fellow Albanians already follow.

"Everybody loves her. Every time we talk about something, she comes up on every conversation we have," said Gentian Gjinaj of White Plains.

Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work with the poor. Her religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, have ministries in Harlem, Greenwich Village, and the South Bronx.