Mother Teresa in Utah—in her own words (part 1)

By Michael Patrick O’Brien–

Almost 50 years ago, on October 19, 1972, Mother Teresa of Calcutta (aka Saint Teresa of Kolkata) visited the now-closed Trappist monastery in Huntsville. She was there to see her friend Brother Nicholas Prinster, who had worked with her in India, but she also met with the monks and some of her American supporters. A few years ago, I shared the story of my own brief encounter with her there (see: Mother Teresa in Utah). Now, thanks to some detective work and research, I can share what she said during this brief but historic visit to Utah.

Eileen Egan, a New York Catholic writer and activist, accompanied Mother Teresa on the trip and tape recorded some of the meetings at the Utah Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity. The tapes are available for public review, along with various other historical materials about Mother Teresa that Egan produced or collected and eventually donated to the archives of the Catholic University of America. (A general finding aid for these archives, including the tapes, is available at: Eileen Egan Mother Teresa Archives.) Years after the 1972 visit, I listened to the tapes (which the university archivists kindly digitized for me) to learn the interesting details about her Utah talks.

As might be expected, Mother Teresa’s Huntsville meetings and discussions covered many normal and somewhat mundane topics related to the details of running a charitable organization in the United States. These topics included: legal issues; where to possibly locate missionary houses in America; whether to charge recipients for materials or viewing films or receiving newsletters (Mother Teresa gently but adamantly opposed charging anyone for anything); coordinating work with dioceses and existing groups (on this point, Mother Teresa said, “I would not like for anybody or any of those organizations to think that we are making something new…we don’t want to break or destroy anything, but we must complete.”); how and where to conduct coworker meetings; publicizing the work; the challenges in safely sending money to India; how to send receipts for various financial contributions (Mother Teresa instructed they must always “respect the mind of the donor”); and how/where people could volunteer to help. 

In addition to such routine and ordinary organizational details, however, the Huntsville tapes also provide some fascinating insights—in Mother Teresa’s own words—into the essential nature of her service to the poorest of the poor or, as she called it, “the work.” She emphasized a half dozen major themes and principles during her Utah talks.

First, she said the work of caring for the poor must be centered in Jesus Christ. Second, people should look first to help the poor in their own neighborhoods before seeking to help the poor in far-flung places. Third, the work can and should begin in a small way, by doing even just the “one thing” that may lead to more meaningful things.

Fourth, volunteers should thank those who help them. Fifth, every person of any means—rich or poor—can share in the work. And finally, although she and others chose to be poor to understand the poor, those doing the work must do it with joy and a smile notwithstanding the poverty. Catholic saints do not publically speak in Utah often, so her message not only is important, it is historic. More details on each of her chosen themes follow below, and in the next blog.

First and foremost, Mother Teresa repeatedly emphasized—to both the monks and to her coworkers—the central importance of Jesus in the work. She said, “And for us, the whole work is built on the words of Christ: ‘I was hungry and I was homeless and I was sick and I was ignorant…and you gave to me.’” She also was modest about her own role, exhorting her listeners (to laughter) not to do the work in the name of Mother Teresa because, “the sooner that name goes out of the picture, the better.” She stated several times that the work was not that of a social worker, but rather it was a religious mission to “witness Christ” and to bring Jesus to, and find him in, the poor she served. “We can give to the people only Jesus, because people are hungry for him, not for us.”

She suggested her coworkers should emphasize the centrality of Jesus by regularly sharing in the Catholic sacraments together as a community, notably Communion. She said, “If you really want to love the poor, if you really believe it is Jesus in the poor, then we must have that first contact with him, then we will be able to see him there.” She further explained, “Once we lose that oneness with Christ, we will also lose the love for Christ and the poor.” She equated the body of Christ received at Communion with the poor bodies for whom she cared, describing how one sister, after long and laborious efforts to clean the maggots off a sick and dying man, came home and told her, “I have been touching the body of Christ for three hours!”

This emphasis prompted Mother Teresa and her sisters to try to show the face of God to the poor for whom they cared, to bless them, and to help them seek forgiveness for their sins. As she told the Utah Trappists, because, “naturally, everyone wants his sins to be forgiven and to see God,” most of her dying patients─even non-Catholics─gladly accepted the Christian blessings offered.

After the patients died, however, Mother Teresa respected the religion of the patient. “When they die, we didn’t change anything in our books. We leave in the books if he’s a Hindu, and then we send for the Hindu people and they come and take the body and they cremate it according to their rites. And then the Muslims come and the Buddhists come…We don’t interfere with them. I think this has been a wonderful way of helping many people.”

(Editor’s note- tomorrow, more details on the rest of Mother Teresa’s 1972 Huntsville talks.)

*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press in August of 2021.