“I had never seen such frightening sights, but Mother Teresa didn’t care what people looked like,” Conroy said. “She had love greater than fear. How did she love that way? She looked within with the eyes of love the way God looks at us. She was seeing the dignity of the human being. I longed to learn that. ... Love is the most important thing. We should be striving eagerly for love.”
She said she felt as if she was journeying with Jesus on his way to Calvary as she served the distressed.
“This is Jesus suffering in his agony again,” Conroy said. “Calcutta was like being there in the agony of the garden and being with him.’’
Her life changed overnight
Upon returning home, she finished her degree in economics and, in 1987, met Mother Teresa again in New York City at her Missionaries of Charity convent. There, Mother Teresa asked her to discern becoming a religious in the order. While it was spiritually enriching to live among nuns who lived true vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and service to the poor, Conroy decided against entering.
“There was something out there that God wanted me to do in this world,” she said. She would return to India several times; she last saw Mother Teresa in 1997, shortly before she died.
Doing small things with love
Inspired by Mother Teresa – who chose her religious name after St. Therese of Lisieux – Conroy read St. Therese’s autobiography, “The Story of a Soul,” and found grace in learning to complete small things with great love yet find satisfaction.
She worked with the Maine Children’s Cancer program, helping dying children. She worked in soup kitchens, homeless shelters and with AIDS patients in the south Bronx. She taught religion to poor children.
Although she professes not to be a writer, Conroy was led to write a book about her time with Mother Teresa and received her blessings on the project. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the book, “Mother Teresa’s Lessons of Love and Secrets of Sanctity,” go to the Missionaries of Charity’s work in Haiti and to EWTN, the Catholic television station that offers spiritual nourishment to Catholics, especially those who are ill and shut in.
“My writing this book and giving it to the world was meant to be,” Conroy said. “God chooses the weak and makes them strong.”
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She also wrote “Praying in the Presence of Our Lord with Mother Teresa,” and translated five additional books from French into English.
She has been interviewed on EWTN and completed a 13-part series “Speaking of Saints” that airs on EWTN.
Cared for her aging mother
Conroy is currently working a highly anticipated book about her mother, whom she describes as “being full of light and full of love,” someone who taught her to be kind, loving and gentle. She said she was privileged to care for her parents until the day they died, and currently lives in her familial Maine home.
“I can see the hands of God guiding this,” Conroy said. “The number one thing in my life is to fulfill God’s will. God’s plans are perfect.”
Her avocation to help others has become her vocation, which is why she travels the country discussing her faith experiences, especially with Mother Teresa.