Hugo brought holy water from Lourdes to the children under Mother Teresa’s care in Calcutta. He also had thousands of bottles shipped to Calcutta. PHOTO COURTESY OF BERNARD MARKEY
Hugo greeting Sister Nirmala Joshi, M.C., who succeeded Mother Teresa as head of the Missionaries of Charity. PHOTO COURTESY OF BERNARD MARKEY
Mother Teresa often told volunteers to show “joy” in the presence of patients and children. Dana Jarvis, an elementary school teacher from Chicago, gives a special needs baby love and a compassionate touch. (1995)
In 1995, Kari Amber McAdam, a Dartmouth College student, easily fed lunch to three children at the same time. Since then, Kari has married and earned her doctorate in psychology.
Sister Ita, a native of Indiana, lifts a baby from her crib with tenderness and a joyful smile.
Hugo had a close relationship with Mother Teresa over thirty years. He was President of Markey & Sons, Inc. in New York City. He would also take the time to drive Mother Teresa around the city in his Lexus when she was in town. PHOTO COURTESY OF BERNARD MARKEY
Hugo posing with Missionaries of Charity sisters, including Sister Nirmala and Sister Lysa. PHOTO COURTESY OF BERNARD MARKEY
Uncle Hugo told me more stories about the Lourdes water and its impact on Mother Teresa’s sisters. Sister Charmaine, who was in charge of the orphanage, told Uncle Hugo that a baby was saved by the Lourdes water he had shipped to Calcutta. They had picked up a baby girl, whom they named Mary, from a dustbin. Her tiny arms were so emaciated that they could not give her an IV. Instead, Sister Charmaine used an eyedropper filled with Lourdes water to feed the baby. The child recovered. Uncle Hugo said that most of the Indian nuns had never heard of the Lourdes apparitions, but as a result of Sister Charmaine’s story the sisters requested Lourdes water to send to their relatives. He then ordered another fifteen thousand bottles of the water to be shipped to Calcutta. Ultimately, word traveled, and Uncle Hugo had another fifty thousand bottles of Lourdes water distributed to families in India.
The first miracle that led to Mother’s beatification was the cure of an Indian woman, whose cancer disappeared.
Uncle Hugo saw Mother Teresa for the last time when she visited New York in 1995. “There was a Mass for her, and she was sitting in the front row next to Sister Nirmala. I went up to Mother and I had been trying for six years to get her to Lourdes. Sister Nirmala was dying to go to Lourdes. Mother said, ‘We go this year.’” Sadly, however, Mother never made the trip to Lourdes, and Uncle Hugo’s dream to accompany her there was never realized.
• • •
Uncle Hugo was on the commission of the cause for canonization for Mother Teresa, which he said included thirty-eight thousand pages of testimony. Evidence is gathered to prove the heroic virtues practiced in the life of the person being petitioned for. These include wisdom, fortitude, and charity. Once the documents are collected, they are presented to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. The first miracle that led to Mother’s beatification was the cure of an Indian woman, whose cancer disappeared. She attributed her cure to the intercession of Mother Teresa. “God interceded to perform this miracle,” Uncle Hugo said.
According to Uncle Hugo, the sisters requested that Mother be canonized at the time of the beatification, and hundreds of her followers petitioned the Vatican. “They knew the Holy Father would not live that long for another miracle,” said Uncle Hugo. “The petitions were so great the Holy Father formed a council of cardinals and asked their advice — if he could canonize her at the same time.” According to Uncle Hugo, the cardinals advised Pope John Paul II not to do it because it would set a precedent and they would be under pressure in the future to accelerate the canonization of other candidates.1
Mother Teresa was known to declare that we are all capable of becoming saints. She saw her sisters as little flowers in God’s garden.
Mother Teresa speaking to Father James at the Gift of Peace House in Washington, D.C. (1991) PHOTO COURTESY OF FATHER JAMES MCCURRY
1 Although Mother Teresa has now been canonized and is formally known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, I will refer to her throughout these pages as Mother Teresa. She remains the only leader of the Missionaries of Charity to have received the title “Mother.”
III.
Father James McCurry
During the flight from Italy after Mother Teresa’s beatification, Uncle Hugo introduced me to Father James McCurry, a resident of the Shrine of St. Anthony in Ellicott City, Maryland. Father James’s devotion to Mother Mary led to numerous meetings with Mother Teresa. Over the years, he led many retreats for Mother Teresa in the United States, Rome, and Mexico, often giving short two- or three-day retreats at the contemplative house in New York’s South Bronx, or days of recollection in homes in New York and Washington, D.C.
Following our flight, I arranged with the kindly priest to visit him at the monastery where he lived. I was now growing accustomed to setting up my video gear and preparing for in-depth interviews with devotees of Mother Teresa. Father James is one of the gentlest priests I have met in my research. The morning of our interview, he was very concerned about my needs and even with the details of items to be included in the video interview. We placed a vase of artificial flowers on a table next to the couch where he would be seated for the next few hours. “I have a real African violet,” he offered. The setting was perfect, and throughout our interview he was framed by a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.
Mother Teresa is shown being the typical mother figure as her sisters, taking their final vows to the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, proceed to enter St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Calcutta. (December 1995)
Mother offers a crucifix to kiss for a sister taking her vows to the order in St. Mary’s Church.
“For her, religious life meant giving yourself totally to God and neighbor, nothing more and nothing less.”
• • •
Father James first read about Mother Teresa in Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. He finally got to see her himself in the late 1970s. Father James explained that the American Catholic Church had heard of Mother Teresa at the time of the Eucharistic Congress in 1976. She came to Philadelphia for the Congress and was given wide exposure to the American public. “A few years later I heard her speak and saw her face-to-face in Chicago.” She spoke about religious life and the consecrated life. “For her, religious life meant giving yourself totally to God and neighbor, nothing more and nothing less.” As Father James said, “Religious life is giving of oneself in love of God to neighbor, and that is what Mother Teresa exemplified.”
The friendship between Father James and Mother Teresa really began in October 1982, when they both attended the canonization of Saint Maximilian Kolbe. Father James told me, “I met