BLESSED BY THE BLESSED —As a student at Dartmouth College 20 years ago, Susan Conroy spent time working alongside Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. Conroy is the author of “Mother Teresa’s Lessons of Love and Secrets of Sanctity.” (Photo provided)
MENOMONEE FALLS — Ruth Conroy, who is dying of cancer, first brought Mother Teresa into the life of her daughter, Susan Conroy, then a 21-year old student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
The younger Conroy, speaking at a Menomonee Falls breakfast meeting Dec. 10 for the West Bend Chapter of Magnificat, an international Catholic women’s organization, said her mother sent her a photo of Mother Teresa with some of her words on joy. Later, when she went home to Maine, she found three other small books on Mother Teresa left on the coffee table by her mother.
She returned to college in 1986 as an economics major, but nine weeks later headed for Calcutta, India for a summer to work with Mother Teresa’s “poorest of the poor.”
Prior to her talk, Conroy told the Catholic Herald that Mother Teresa’s diminutive stature was striking. She stood just 4 feet 11 inches tall and had memorable hands.
“Even though they were wrinkled and gnarled, they were so soft. Often when I was discussing things with her I realized she was holding my hand. She must have reached out to me. It’s the power of the human touch all of us have,” she said.
