GETTING IN THE HABIT Sarah McTighe, a sixth-grader at Holy Spirit School, Pequannock, got up early Sept. 4 to watch the canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta by Pope Francis in Rome. The new saint inspires Sarah in her own commitment to serve the poor. Above, Sarah dresses as St. Teresa in a white religious habit edged with blue stripes to present a report to her class in fourth grade.
PEQUANNOCK Buzz! Buzz! The alarm sounds, piercing the quiet 4 a.m. world of the McTighe household in Riverdale Sept. 4.
Eleven-year-old Sarah McTighe — rather cheery for this early hour of the morning — shuts off the alarm and heads downstairs. Excited, the sixth-grader from Holy Spirit School here turns on the TV to watch Mother Teresa step out of the pages of a class report that she had written and into Church history as Pope Francis canonizes her a saint — live from St. Peter’s Square in Rome. And Sarah wouldn’t have missed it for anything because of her devotion to Catholicism’s newest saint, who inspires her in her own commitment to serve the poor.
“I have always liked that St. Teresa helped the poor and put others before herself. I like to make sure that poor people are treated like anyone else. They are still human,” said Sarah of St. Mary’s Parish, Pompton Lakes, who watched the canonization with her mother, Ivannia Vega-McTighe, who serves as associate academic dean of evangelization at St. Paul Inside the Walls; the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard, Madison. “Pope Francis and other people talked about St. Teresa’s life and the things that she did before the Mass. I liked the [canonization] Mass and that there were so many people there. I wanted to see it live and I’m happy that I did it,” she said.
The Sept. 4 canonization Mass brought Sarah back to memories of fourth grade, when she wrote and delivered a presentation on “Mother Teresa: Helper of the Poor,” a book by Kristen Woronoff. In it, the young girl reported some of the facts of the future saint’s life: that she felt called to religious life at 12 years old; she started the Missionaries of Charity, who care for the poor in 133 countries; and she won the Nobel Peace prize in 1979.
“Mother Teresa is so very important to the world. She loved the poor and always helped them. The Missionaries of Charity keep doing that too. Mother Teresa teaches all of us that we should follow Jesus’ footsteps and help people everywhere. She inspires people,” Sarah wrote in the conclusion of her book report, which received an “A.”
Sarah presented her report to the class by dressing up like Mother Teresa in a white religious habit edged with blue stripes. Her mother, who also serves as director of religious education at Our Lady of Victories (OLV) Parish, Paterson, and her older sister, Hannah, now a 13-year-old Holy Spirit eighth-grader, constructed the outfit from a bed sheet and blue ribbon.
Helping the needy, like Mother Teresa, has always been a part of Sarah’s life. In second grade, she asked family and friends to forego gifts for her first Holy Communion and, instead, donate to Catholic Relief Services. She has joined classmates at Holy Spirit in collecting coins for Operation Rice Bowl. She also helped organize food drives for the OLV community after Hurricane Sandy and for a local food bank, her mother said.
“We have to do what Jesus did for us. We have to be nice to people like he was and we have to help the poor,” Sarah told The Beacon, when she encouraged people to donate to CRS for her first Holy Communion.
Looking back, her mother noted, “Sarah has had a big heart for the poor for as long as I can remember.”
Inspiration for Sarah’s commitment to the poor comes from many other role models in her life, including the members of St. Mary’s, a Franciscan parish dedicated to social justice. In addition, Sarah’s father, John, also partners with her mother to cultivate “faith life at home.” A professor at Ramapo College, Mahwah, he has dedicated more than 20 years working with the poor of the Bronx, N.Y., Washington, D.C., and Paterson.
Similarly, Sarah hopes to inspire other children and even adults to devote time to minister to the poor. She said, “We should always help others, especially if we already have everything we need.”
Days before St. Teresa’s canonization, Sarah asked her mother if they could get up early to watch it. From a young age, she developed a devotion to the new saint — praying to her and collecting pictures and holy cards. After TV coverage of the event ended around 6:45 a.m., a tired Sarah took a nap.
“John and I tell our two girls that everything we have comes from God and goes to God. Also, we need to get to know [the poor] people for who they are. It’s the biggest blessing to be close to them,” Sarah’s mother said. “The canonization of St. Teresa was beautiful. It was wonderful to see someone from our lifetime canonized a saint,” she said.