Following a journey funded by his parishioners to mark his 10th anniversary as a priest, the Rev. William J. Scanlan of St. Timothy’s Parish has returned home with harrowing accounts of extreme poverty witnessed during a visit to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in India.
Reflecting on the trip, Father Scanlan noted that American slums pale in comparison to what he encountered.
In Bombay, he witnessed young children sleeping on sidewalks watched over by siblings, while in Calcutta and its outskirts, he experienced unrelenting heat, narrow cow-path streets, and the pervasive odor of domestic dung fires. Despite having traveled through desolate regions of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, Scanlan stated, “I haven’t experienced anything like I experienced in India.”
Life with the Missionaries of Charity
Staying at a missionary residence in Kidderpore near Calcutta, Scanlan and his two traveling companions slept in bedrolls on the third-floor roof to catch a breeze, enduring morning temperatures in the 90s. Dining on a monotonous, frugal diet of tea, rice, and basic vegetables—noting that the brothers intentionally eat more simply than the poor they serve—Scanlan remarked on the profound selflessness of the order: “In their efforts to serve the poorest of the poor, they become the poorest of the poor.”
Although he did not meet Mother Teresa—who was serving as a papal emissary in war-torn Beirut—Scanlan successfully delivered nearly $11,000 in donations raised primarily through St. Timothy’s Parish to the order’s motherhouse. He also returned with a six-yard red-maroon silk sari woven with 25 grams of gold and 20 grams of silver, intended as a gift for the parish, possibly to be fashioned into liturgical vestments.
Reflections on Spirituality and Struggle
Visiting clinics that care for the indigent sick and dying, Scanlan observed that the demanding work requires deep spiritual fortitude. “The only way you could do what they’re doing is with some kind of spirituality,” he noted. Beyond the physical hardships and a personal weight loss of 22 pounds on the “Mother Teresa diet,” Scanlan expressed a deep appreciation for India’s national journey, remarking on a young nation striving to unite diverse languages and religions: “I think it’s a country trying to learn what freedom means. I have a very strong sense of her struggle.”
Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger
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