By David Karas | Correspondent

Karin Duffy recalls well the moving experience of meeting Mother Teresa of Kolkata and receiving the special gift of Rosary beads from the recently-canonized saint.

“It was just awesome,” she shared. “I remember her prayerful hands and her piercing eyes just looking through you.”

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Duffy works with her husband, Gerry, who is executive director of The Barn for the Poorest of the Poor, Middletown, a nonprofit that distributes food to those in need. The Duffys, who have been working with the organization since 1987, were no strangers to the Missionaries of Charity sisters in New York, where the Barn started out doing the majority of its service.

“We have been delivering food to the nuns and have gotten to know them since my wife and I have been doing it,” Gerry Duffy said. “It is really a labor of love – we enjoy doing it, and seeing what work they do. We are in awe of their work.”

And so it was only fitting that the couple, parishioners of St. Mary Parish, Middletown, were among the pilgrims of the Diocese of Trenton who traveled to Vatican City to witness the Sept. 4 canonization of now-St. Teresa.

“We felt very honored and very humble that we could be there,” Karin Duffy said.

The Diocese was well-represented at the canonization. In addition to the Duffys, other pilgrims included Father Joseph Jakub – whose two-month sabbatical in the Vatican coincided with the canonization and allowed him to be among the concelebrating priests at the Mass – Father Joy Chacko, parochial vicar in St. Gabriel Parish, Marlboro, and Father Alberto Tamayo, pastor in St. Anthony of Padua Parish, Red Bank.

‘The Way She Lived Her Life’

Gerry Duffy took over The Barn for the Poorest of the Poor in 2010, when founder Barney Welch died. Welch had a long history with Mother Teresa, as he had been supplying food to New Jersey and New York City soup kitchens, Missionaries of Charity convents, parishes and more since 1981, when his niece entered the order.

The Duffys received tickets to the Sept. 4 canonization Mass from the Missionaries of Charity sisters in the Bronx, N.Y., and were able to reunite with some of the sisters they have gotten to know over the years.

“The sisters get transferred too often that we don’t get to see them,” Karin Duffy said. “We contacted so many of the sisters that we haven’t seen in a couple of years. It is a thrill to be with them – they are just so terribly joyful and happy.”

The couple joined the flocks of faithful in line for the canonization Mass at 6 a.m., spending hours pressed up against others waiting to enter St. Peter’s Square before they would be able to reach their seats. The tickets they had been given allowed them to sit closer to the front than most, and they had the chance to join sisters they know for the experience.

“It was amazing,” Gerry Duffy said. “She (Mother Teresa) was a saint as far as we were concerned, way before she became a saint. I knew it would happen eventually.”

Following their time in Rome, the couple traveled to Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina – a place that has become a popular destination for faithful following a series of reported visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“The important thing is how we react to it,” Gerry said of their time spent in Medjugorje. “It is the same with Mother Teresa – she was a saint the way she lived her life.”

An ‘inspiring’ experience

Kenneth Tyson was among parishioners of St. Gabriel Parish who traveled to Rome and surrounding cities as part of the pilgrimage led by Father Chacko. After hearing about the opportunity, Tyson and his wife, Ophelia, quickly realized that they could not pass it up.

“We are both in our 70s,” he said. “To witness an event such as this is once in a lifetime, at least for us.”

Tyson described attending the canonization Mass as being among a large group of friends.

“It was like being with the pope and 300,000 of his closest friends,” he said. “We are all there together, and you could sense that in the crowd. Everybody there was very positive, very close.”

Before the Mass began, it was very loud with so many in attendance, he said. “Once the Mass started, it was very quiet and very respectful,” Tyson said, adding that while Rome’s heat and humidity was not ideal, it was easily eclipsed by the momentous occasion.

“Although the physical environment wasn’t the most pleasant at the time, there was just a sense of something special – something unique in terms of being present, watching and experiencing that event,” he said. “It was inspiring.”

‘Much closer to God’

Father Chacko was also surprised to play a role in the canonization Mass.

“Sept. 4 began as I was walking through the Vatican grounds with a grateful heart, (and) a young seminarian with a wonderful smile asked me (a) few questions and asked me…’do you want (to) distribute Holy Communion?’” he recalled. “I said…it would be an honor and privilege.”

After Father Chacko said a quiet prayer to himself asking for the intercession of Mother Teresa, he was handed a ticket and brought into the basilica to be vested and prepare for the Mass.

Father Chacko also celebrated Mass at each of the stops he and his fellow pilgrims and parishioners made along the way, including Mass in the Tomb Chapel of St. Francis in Assisi.

Tyson described the experience of the pilgrimage, and being present for the canonization Mass, as “inspiring.”

“It began, and continues, to shine a light that makes us feel much closer together, much closer to God,” he said.