Scottish Catholic Observer

Ian Dunn and Amanda Connelly

Julie Harvie was lucky enough to attend the very first youth pilgrimage held by St Pope John Paul II in 1983, at which, as a young teenager, she saw and heard Mother Teresa herself speak to the faithful gathered there. She was one of only five people in Glasgow to get the opportunity to go. Travelling to Rome, she listened at the Archbasilica of St John Lateran as Mother Teresa, alongside a number of other speakers, preached on the subject of love.

“She had so much love for these people, wanting to feed them and looking after the poor,” Ms Harvie said, recalling Mother Teresa speaking that day. “It was quite emotional hearing her speaking because she had obviously given her whole life to these people.”

Later on when walking past, Ms Harvie was also lucky enough to pass Mother Teresa herself. “She was tiny—about half my height and very wizened-looking, but when speaking she had so much strength, so much authority.”

Speaking now, more than 30 years on, Ms Harvie still remembers the lasting impact of hearing her speak that day. “It made an impact because she spoke with such conviction, such sincerity, and the whole experience kind of affirmed my faith,” she said.

“It’s amazing and I feel very privileged that I had that opportunity, and obviously because Pope John Paul II is a saint now too, so that’s two saints now. I feel very lucky to have been in her presence.”

The Vatican confirmed at the end of 2015 that Pope Francis had recognised a miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, and announced she was to be made saint, with her canonisation taking place on September 4. Ms Harvie was just one of a number of Scots to have had the honour of seeing the saint in person.

For Sr Roseann Reddy, meeting Mother Teresa was a life changing moment.

“I met her at the 1983 SPUC rally in Glasgow Green and I gave her my ‘tiny feet’ badge which she wore the next day,” she said. “She was tiny! But remarkable as well. It felt remarkable that she was here, in this wee country,” she said.

The nun issued a call to action that profoundly resonated.

“Her whole thing was Faith into action,” he said. “It’s not good enough to think good thoughts: you need to go out there and help people. And it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you do something. Don’t care if you knit cardigans, as long as you knit them for the right reason.”

As she’s grown older, Sr Reddy says she’s ‘come to see the wisdom of that even more.’

“Look at all these massive global problems there are,” she said. “How do you solve all that? But just by doing little things you can have an incredible impact on the lives of people you touch. Which is what Mother Teresa did.”

Meeting Mother Teresa was part of what inspired her to becomes a religious sister herself, she said. “I think I saw in Mother Teresa the power of what religious life can be,” she said. “You know if she’d just been a wee housewife from Calcutta people wouldn’t have listened. But the fact she’d given up her whole life was really something.

“That whole commitment that’s in religious life gets lost in the modern age, I think. You know, lots of people want to do something good in their gap year but then go back to ‘real life.’ But what appealed about Mother Teresa was an all encompassing thing, that conviction that you can’t do other things and live the life we choose to live.

“That’s the thing if you are religious,” she went on. “If you’re out there walking the streets people feel free to come up to you and start talking about God, and they just wouldn’t otherwise.”

Sr Roseann said the saint also shows the power of a woman in the Church.

“She’s up there now, in the communion of saints,” she said. “This wee woman who managed to do all that she did. It’s really something.”