The Catholic Exponent headline covering Mother Teresa’s visit to Canton 42 years ago was a quote from the saint herself: “Not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.” The Nobel Prize winner was 71 years old when she visited the city at the invitation of Walsh College (now Walsh University) with the cooperation of diocesan Catholic Charities and the City of Canton.
She arrived June 22 and spent the night as a guest of the Ursuline Sisters at Our Lady of Peace Church (now Christ the Servant Parish). After morning Mass there, she was accompanied to Walsh, where she received an honorary doctorate of human services degree. She then spent an hour in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament at Sancta Clara Monastery, where she also met informally with the Poor Clare Nuns of Perpetual Adoration, including Mother Reparata (in the far left of this Exponent photo). Later that day, in her public talk at Umstattd Hall, she told her audience as reported by the Exponent’s Denny Finneran and Pete Sheehan, “I thought, ‘How wonderful that these Poor Clares keep a 24-hour vigil before the Blessed Sacrament—they are with Jesus 24 hours a day.’ Then it occurred to me that we are all with Jesus 24 hours a day. If we see Christ in each other—if we feed the hungry, visit the sick, the lonely, shelter the homeless—we do these things to Christ Himself.”
Mother Teresa (1910-1997) worked tirelessly on behalf of the poor and pleaded with the world to see the face of Christ in the poorest among us. She was canonized by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016. Her feast day is September 5.
Effective July 1 this year, three Warren parishes—Blessed Sacrament, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and St. Mary and St. Joseph—were merged to become St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish.
