St. Paul's mourns `an angel of love'.

• Position: NEWS

Byline: Carol McDonald

WORCESTER - The Rev. Richard F. Reidy, pastor of St. Paul's Cathedral, remembers a day in Rome when a fragile, lone figure strained to open a massive church door.

Reidy and others inside were surprised to find, standing in the doorway, a very small, smiling woman whose almost palpable spiritual presence was as striking as her famous, time-creased face.

Mother Teresa, as she did occasionally when visiting Rome, had come to call.

"The thing she would drill into us was, "Be holy priests,' " Reidy said yesterday. Imitating the good-natured way she would wag her finger emphatically at each word, he beamed from the memory.

"She told us to give our lives to Christ, and to do that by giving ourselves to those in need around us. That's how we would be holy priests," said Reidy, who was a seminary student in Rome during the early 1990s.

Along with her utmost faith and sense of mission, Mother Teresa had a love for life and a strong sense of humor, carrying an unforgettable sparkle in her eyes, Reidy said.

"She had a noble simplicity," he said.

She spent most of her life among the poor and sick in Calcutta. She died there Friday at the age of 87.

"It's certainly a great loss for the church and the world, but we're confident that she's with the Lord now and praying for us to continue on and follow the example of Christ, as she did herself for so many years," Reidy said.

Reidy, with more than 300 others, some in colorful Mexican garments, walked, sang hymns, and hummed Latino tunes along Main Street yesterday morning. The procession preceded the enshrining of a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Paul's Cathedral.

The painting commemorates the first apparition of the Virgin Mary in the New World. Church lore holds that Mary appeared before a peasant in the 1530s in Mexico and presided over a miracle. When the peasant gathered roses for the bishop, as Mary directed, the image of her face became imprinted on the poncho he was wearing and had used to carried the flowers.

PAINTING HELD ALOFT

A copy of the painting, bordered in roses, was held aloft during the procession, which involved members of a number of area churches. The real painting, commissioned recently for the diocese, was already hanging at the right rear of the cathedral.

The procession to the cathedral began at St. Peter's Church at 931 Main St., one of about four city churches that has a largely Latino congregation.

Many participants had Mother Teresa and Princess...