WATCH: Avon Lake Priest Travels to Vatican City for Mother Teresa's Canonization

AVON LAKE, OH — Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims will be making their way to Vatican City for the canonization of Mother Teresa and Father Ronald Wearsch of Avon Lake will be one of them.

Cleveland19.com reports that students at St. Joseph Parish in Avon Lake gave Father Wearsch hand-written prayers to read on his flight to Rome. Wearsch left on Thursday, he is traveling with 12 others.

Pope Francis will be performing the canonization mass on Sunday morning in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. Bishops from both Albania, where Mother Teresa was born in 1910, and India will be in attendance, as well as state leaders. She'll be the third saint named Teresa in the Catholic church.

"A saint is someone who is very holy," Wearsch told cleveland19. "They have had some miracles worked in their name. They've been people with outstanding character and faith. So Mother Teresa is a modern day saint. A lady from Albania that found her way to Calcutta, India and just did marvelous things for people in need there," Wearsch said.

Mother Teresa was widely known as a living saint as she ministered to the sick and the dying in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the world. Although some criticized her for not also challenging the injustices that kept so many people so poor and abandoned, her service touched the hearts of millions of people of all faiths. Teresa worked tirelessly with the poor in India. She received a Noble Peace Prize In 1997.

Wearsch told cleveland19 that his parish at St. Joseph is inspired by her message of love and kindness.

Visit cleveland19.com for more.

Image courtesy St. Mary Magdalene Parish, Screenshot via YouTube