Juan Diego CHS is building a prayer garden to honor benefactor; donations sought

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A labyrinth similar to this one at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray will be constructed at Juan Diego Catholic High School. Courtesy photo/JDCHS

DRAPER — Juan Diego Catholic High School students are building a Blessed Mother Teresa prayer garden to honor the late L. Sam Skaggs, Jr. and his devotion to the life and work of Mother Teresa.

To help Juan Diego in their fundraising efforts, the ALSAM Foundation posed a challenge grant of $50,000 to match donations received toward the project.

Skaggs, who contributed financially to every Utah Catholic school, and particularly to the Skaggs Catholic Center, died March 21 of causes incident to age. He was 89.

"We had the idea prior to Mr. Skaggs passing away," said Molly Dumas, JDCHS Institutional Advancement/Public Information director. "We wanted to honor him because he has been such an important figure for our school. We had obtained a beautiful statue of Mother Teresa and we wanted it and the prayer garden to be accessible to the students."

Skaggs’ children, under the auspices of the ALSAM Foundation, commissioned the statue of Mother Teresa to be sculpted by Betty Sabo of Albuquerque, N.M., to honor their father’s devotion to the nun, and donated it to the school in 2009.

Skaggs was raised as a Baptist and converted to Catholicism in 1995. During his conversion process and during a stay in Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif., Skaggs was in the same hospital in the same room in which Mother Teresa had stayed 10 years earlier.

"His health was failing," said Dr. Galey Colosimo, Juan Diego principal. "His heart was erratic and he felt powerless because he couldn’t move. All he could do was look straight ahead at a mirror holding a photograph of Mother Teresa."

He prayed for a sign and while praying the photograph fell down, Colosimo said. "In Skaggs’ prayer he said, ‘If I live I will build another high school like Juan Diego.’ To the doctors’ surprise, 12 hours later his heart stabilized and he was able to have the surgery he needed. He woke up pain free for the first time in 25 years. He kept his promise by building a high school in San Diego."

To honor Skaggs, the statue of Mother Teresa will be placed outside the school’s library in a landscaped garden with a prayer labyrinth. Walking the labyrinth has been a spiritual exercise popular among the students.

"We drew a labyrinth on the grass modeled after the labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral in France," said Christine Petrone, Juan Diego Theology Faculty Director of Faith Formation. "We will model Juan Diego’s labyrinth after the 12-circuit Chartres labyrinth. Walking the labyrinth clears the mind and gives insight into the spiritual journey. Our students really like walking the labyrinth and we have been doing it since I began teaching here in 2006; the first time we used soup cans."

Juan Diego junior Spense Owens said walking the labyrinth helped him collect his thoughts and became a peaceful experience. "I felt like it was a greater, deeper form of prayer than what we usually do."

To meet the financial challenge, students are selling sponsored bricks to encircle the pathway of the labyrinth.

"The brick campaign is a way people can honor family members or anybody who has been a part of this community," said Dumas. "The labyrinth will be accessible to anybody who wants to use it to pray."

The labyrinth will be painted on the grass again until the money is raised, said Dumas. "It is a $50,000 challenge and will be at least a $100,000 project. We already have a donation of $10,000 from one family plus we have collected almost $7,000. We are hoping to have the project complete by our 14th anniversary dedication in September."

For information on the labyrinth, visit www.jdchs.org.