Beirut, Lebanon, Aug 17, 2010 / 22:51 pm
Télé Lumière and Noursat, the only Catholic television and satellite network broadcast from the Middle East, has announced it will air a series of celebrations to honor Blessed Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday. A highlight of its coverage will be the installation of a nearly 10-foot-tall statue of the woman devoted to charity.
The statue will be erected in Sed El Bouchrieh, a city in the Fanar region of Lebanon, where the first Missionaries of Charity convent was established. Since 1979, Mother Teresa’s religious order has had a center in Fanar and another in Becharre.
In 1982 Mother Teresa visited Lebanon and transferred to safety about 50 orphans and disabled people who had been trapped by Israeli bombing.
The Fanar center hosts orphans or children rejected by their families because of their handicaps. It also hosts abandoned women who have no children to care for them.
The statue to be installed is close to 10 feet in height and stands on a on a 6.5-foot high platform. It shows Mother Teresa with a “comforting tender smile” and a “bright healing look,” Télé Lumière and Noursat reports.
Its creator is artist George Aoun, while Armenian engineer Sarkis Ohanian coated the work with bronze.
Télé Lumière and Noursat is preparing a “majestic, official diplomatic and popular festival” for the occasion. The program will air at 6 p.m. Beirut time on Aug. 26.
The Maronite Archbishop of Beirut Boulos Matar will celebrate a Mass for the event in St. Takla Church. There will be a procession to the statue’s platform, with participants chanting and singing hymns.
Télé Lumière and Noursat has produced and broadcast several programs about Mother Teresa, including a documentary filmed in Calcutta. For three months it has aired a daily program titled “The Essence of Calcutta.”
“The station considers this as a small recognition from, and a testimony to the ways she touched the lives of the people, all the sisters for all the love, faith and care of all those who are in need, and for being a true example of Jesus’ love,” the broadcaster explained.