Healing of Monica Besra

After applying a medallion of Mother Teresa and praying, she felt intense warmth and the tumor disappeared.

Monica Besra was a tribal woman from the Nadia district of West Bengal, India. In 1998 she was suffering from a large abdominal tumor — described in medical records as a benign ovarian or abdominal mass — as well as tuberculosis and meningitis. She had been receiving treatment at a clinic run by the Missionaries of Charity, but her condition had not improved. By the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death, she was severely ill.

On the night of September 5, 1998 — the exact anniversary of Mother Teresa's death — sisters at the mission placed a medallion that had been touched to Mother Teresa's body against Monica Besra's abdomen and prayed. Monica Besra later described feeling an intense light and warmth emanating from the medallion. By morning, the tumor was gone.

Her physicians, who had documented the mass, examined her and found no trace of it. The sudden and complete disappearance of the tumor had no medical explanation consistent with its prior diagnosis or the absence of any intervening treatment.

The case was investigated by the Vatican's Consulta Medica, which concluded in 2002 that the healing was medically inexplicable. Pope John Paul II recognized the miracle, and it served as the basis for Mother Teresa's beatification on October 19, 2003.

The case attracted significant public controversy, particularly from Monica Besra's husband and some of her treating physicians, who attributed her recovery to conventional medical treatment. The Vatican's position, following its standard process of independent medical review, was that the available evidence did not support that conclusion.

Monica Besra has consistently maintained that she was healed through Mother Teresa's intercession. She was present at the beatification ceremony in Rome.