Reflections on Working
with Mother Teresa
12:00 PM • Frantz Classroom
For many of us, Mother Teresa represents the highest form of humanitarian service. Her self-sacrificing actions on behalf of the poor and helpless in Calcutta, India are a model and inspiration to millions worldwide. Yet throughout her forty-five years of service in India, she confessed to experiencing long periods of spiritual dryness and doubt in which she “felt no presence of God whatsoever.” How do we understand these experiences of such a great saint? Where is God in suffering? How did Mother Teresa find the strength to persevere in what she called “the long darkness”?
In this session, Fr. Jon Kalisch, Chaplain of the Catholic Student Center at Dartmouth, will interview Susan Conroy D’87 about her experiences working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. Ms. Conroy frequently writes and speaks about Mother Teresa, and has authored the book Mother Teresa’s Lessons of Love and Secrets of Sanctity.
Interviewer
Fr. Jon Kalisch
Chaplain, Aquinas House Catholic Student Center
Fr. Jonathan Kalisch is chaplain for Aquinas House, Dartmouth’s Catholic Student Center and Ministry. Fr. Jon attended Georgetown University, where he majored in American Studies with a concentration in history and government. After graduating in 1994, he worked for Price Waterhouse in Warsaw, Poland. He discerned a call to the priesthood while making a pilgrimage from Poland to the Holy Land. He returned to the United States, and joined the Dominican Order in 1996 after working as a political campaign manager. During his time in the seminary, Fr. Jon received a Masters of Divinity and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology. He was ordained a priest in 2003, and in 2004 was assigned as campus minister to Quinnipiac University, where he remained until he came to Dartmouth in the Fall of 2009.
Guest
Susan Conroy D’87
author, public speaker, and television host
Susan Conroy made her first trip to Calcutta to work with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in 1986, after her junior year at Dartmouth. In 1987, at the request of Mother Teresa herself, Susan stayed in the Order's convent in the South Bronx, New York, in contemplation of the religious life. During that visit, a time she calls "the most profoundly meaningful experience of my life, " Susan came to know Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, "the greatest saint of modern times," who has had as great an impact on Susan's life as has Mother Teresa. Susan did not enter the Order, but in 1991, during Lent, she once again returned to Calcutta to work with the Sisters among the dying destitutes. She and Mother Teresa kept in touch until Mother's death in 1997. Before being called Home to God, Mother Teresa gave Susan permission to write a book about her experiences. Mother Teresa's Lessons of Love and Secrets of Sanctity is Susan's first book, followed by Praying In The Presence Of Our Lord With Mother Teresa.
Today, Susan travels around the country giving presentations on her experiences with Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. Susan also translates books from French into English. Each book translation relates to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, including The Power of Confidence by Father Conrad DeMeester, The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life by Father Charles Arminjon, and The Plays of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Susan has made numerous television appearances for local as well as worldwide audiences. On EWTN's global television network, she hosted a 5 part mini-series of shows which began airing in June of 2008 and again in February 2009 and March 2010, called "Speaking of Saints."
Susan received her Bachelors in Economics from Dartmouth College in 1987, and spent her early post-graduate years working for the Maine Children’s Cancer Program, and later for UNUM Life Insurance Company. She is a native of South Portland, ME, and is currently working on a book titled Unfading Beauty, containing personal reflections upon her kind, loving and gentle mother.
