Mother Teresa Award Winners Honored At Catholic Charities Event

At the May 8 Catholic Charities of Evansville annual dinner, where 39 parishioners from the Diocese of Evansville were honored as 2013 Mother Teresa Award recipients, Bishop Charles C. Thompson recalled a brief encounter he had with Mother Teresa of Calcutta when he was a student assistant at Bellarmine University. Mother Teresa told a story that day about a starving boy who was given a slice of bread that he ate very slowly. When asked why he was nibbling on the bread instead of devouring it, the boy replied, “I want to take my time because as soon as I finish it, I know I’ll be hungry again.”

“All of you tonight,” Bishop Thompson told the Mother Teresa recipients who were gathered in the gymnasium at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Haubstadt, “when you reach out even in the slightest way to satisfy the hunger and thirst of those in need and when you fill them with a sense of faith, justice, mercy and compassion, you give that little boy a reason to eat his bread with a little more hope and a little more confidence.”

Since 2007, the Mother Teresa Award has been given to recognize diocesan parishioners who demonstrate a willingness to hear and respond to the following words of Jesus: Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

This year’s dinner and awards reception was preceded by an evening prayer service at Sts. Peter and Paul Church. During the service, Bishop Thompson said, “We gather tonight to praise God and to recognize this tremendous group (of Mother Teresa Award winners) for their great outreach to the poor and the needy, and for carrying out the principles of our Catholic social teaching in such a real and helpful way.”

He also reminded the award winners and their families and friends that when we give of ourselves to others, we don’t do so as “lone rangers” but rather in “the context of the Body of Christ.”

“We are most effective when we remember that we are connected to God and to one another,” he said. “We come here tonight to be community and to be strengthened and inspired by one another.”

After dinner and just before the awards ceremony, Catholic Charities of Evansville Director Sharon Burns shared some of the organization’s highlights from the past year, which included receiving national recognition from Catholic Charities USA for the Neighbor to Neighbor program, receiving a program grant from Vectren Corp. that allowed for the creation of a new GED sponsorship program, and the successful coordination of the first Catholic Charities of Evansville-assisted adoption in a number of years.

As in years past, the Message will publish photos and brief bios of the Mother Teresa Award winners, roughly two at a time, over the next several weeks. The bios and photos will be published in alphabetical order, beginning next Friday.