Judge Memorial CHS adopts memento of saint

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St. Teresa of Kolkata may once have sat on this pew, which was recovered from the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville and now is located in the main officer of Judge Memorial Catholic High School.

By Derek P. Jensen

Special to the Intermountain Catholic

SALT LAKE CITY — Traipse into the main office of any school and the hodgepodge is the same: tardy slips, forgotten lunches, parent paperwork and beckoning bells. But Judge Memorial Catholic High School has added something surprising: a pew where Mother Teresa (now St. Teresa of Kolkata) is believed to have sat.

The pew came to the school from the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville, a Trappist monastery that closed in 2017. Mother Teresa visited the abbey in the fall of 1972. Upon her arrival, crowds swelled at the airport — not for Mother Teresa but for the Osmonds, the singing siblings from Ogden who were at the height of their fame at the time and who were due to land in Salt Lake City later that night.

Mother Teresa arrived in Huntsville wearing a white sari, a black sweater and sandals. She was permitted to speak only after the Trappist monks relaxed a strict rule prohibiting women in their cloister.

  “She came and sat right in front of us,” remembered Mike O’Brien, who lived and worked with the monks as a boy. Then age 11, O’Brien attended the Mass with Mother Teresa at the monastery. This fall, O’Brien, now a local attorney, retrieved the bench on which the future saint may have sat.

The bench was among a trailer full that were recovered from the abbey. Some of them were delivered to a Greek Orthodox church, but O’Brien saved six for Judge.

“I’m so glad the school has embraced them,” he said.

Only the one pew will be showcased for rare religious relevance. Along with the pew, students, parents and visitors soon will see a photo of Mother Teresa that was taken the same day of her 1972 Utah visit. It will bookend the saint’s “Do It Anyway” poem, which aligns with Judge’s mission of shaping young men and women to create a more just society. The well-worn Mother Teresa pew could even serve as a prop for a modern pastime: taking selfies, if done respectfully.

“What a blessing that our school was given this unique gift,” said Judge parent Kerry Hankins. “I hope that with the inspiration of Mother Teresa, this pew will become a treasured memory for my children on their journey through Judge.”

Hankins’ affinity for school pews is fashioned by experience. She grew up a block from the monastery and fondly remembers as a student in Ogden another “gathering place” pew outside the main office at St. Joseph Catholic High School.

The pew from the monastery “is a symbol of faith,” Hankins said. “And a reminder that the school is a place of love and acceptance.”

Placing a likely third-class relic (an object a saint has touched) inside Utah’s longest-operating Catholic high school marks the latest in a deliberate effort to continue the legacy of the faith in Utah, according to Judge Principal Patrick Lambert. The school recently incorporated into its outdoor prayer garden the historical gate from the long-shuttered St. Mary of the Wasatch Academy, which served for most of the 1960s as the girls’ campus for Judge. The main campus returned to co-educational status after 1970; the school will launch its 100th anniversary celebration next fall.

Plans also are underway to rescue a relic from the former Notre Dame School in Price.

“I love that Judge is able to carry on the legacy of these Catholic institutions across the state,” Lambert said. “We’re kind of a living museum.” 

Derek P. Jensen is director of communications at Judge Memorial CHS.