DATE: Saturday, September 6, 1997           TAG: 9709060400

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEPHEN KIEHL, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

VIRGINIANS REMEMBER MOTHER TERESA WITH WARMTH AND AFFECTION

Jessica Davey was jogging in Vermont when the news came over her portable radio. Shocked, she rushed to the home of a neighbor with a television to soak up all the information she could.

It had been less than seven months since the Norfolk native had seen Mother Teresa in Calcutta. And now she was gone.

Davey, 24, said Mother Teresa looked frail, but satisfied, when she last saw her.

``My lasting image of her is of someone who had done what they were supposed to do, who had fulfilled their own mission in life,'' said Davey, who has returned to Calcutta every year since spending three months there in 1993 volunteering in the famous nun's homes for the poor and disabled in Calcutta.

Davey, now finishing up her summer job at a Vermont resort, saw Mother Teresa almost every day she spent in India and was struck by how assertive and powerful she was.

``From Mother Teresa, I came to know and understand what poverty really is,'' Davey said. ``She taught me that poverty is about being abandoned and being alone and being no one to anyone. There's nothing sugary about Mother Teresa.''

As news of Mother Teresa's passing spread through Hampton Roads and the world Friday, even those who had never met the woman were moved by her death and inspired by her life. Many spoke of Mother Teresa in the present tense, an acknowledgment perhaps that though her life on earth is over, her spirit lives on.

Teresa Stanley, a social minister at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, keeps a photo of Mother Teresa in her office. She said the nun inspired many people to emulate her by serving the poor and disenfranchised.

St. Nicholas has 40 outreach groups that work with the community in everything from AIDS ministry to food pantries. Stanley said Mother Teresa made the people involved in those groups and many others feel that their contribution, no matter how small, was important.

``Mother Teresa is such an inspiration,'' said Stanley, 38. ``She was such a longstanding model of integrity. She challenged everybody right on the level they were on, making it possible for all of us to contribute.''

Last year, the College of William and Mary asked applicants to suggest whose faces should grace a Mount Rushmore for the 20th century. Mother Teresa came in fourth, behind Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

Local Catholic churches were planning Friday to pay tribute to Mother Teresa and pray for her at Masses this weekend.

Sister Charles Legg, a Daughter of Charity who teaches at Portsmouth Catholic Elementary School, will lead a group of people in saying the rosary at St. Mary's Cemetery in Norfolk at 1 p.m. Sunday.

At St. Gregory's Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, Sister Brenda Query said the nuns spent part of the afternoon constructing a memorial that will be placed on the altar for Sunday's Masses and put in St. Gregory's school next week as ``a visual reminder of the saint who walked among us.''

Query said she saw Mother Teresa in 1976 in a candlelight procession at the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia. Though she didn't speak to her, Query said Mother Teresa was an inspiration.

``She's very saintly, an example to all people to love the poor and be dedicated to the most abandoned,'' Query said.

Bishop Walter F. Sullivan, of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, which includes Hampton Roads, also saw Mother Teresa in Philadelphia. He said that even though she was small and frail, she captured the attention of everybody.

In a statement, Sullivan said Mother Teresa ``is already numbered among the saints.''

``Our world has lost one of the leading religious leaders of our age,'' the statement said. ``Her life of dedication and her concern for the very poor captured the imagination of people of all faiths. Mother Teresa challenges us to continue her work by seeing and defending the dignity of every person.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Bishop Walter F. Sullivan said that Mother Teresa ``is already

numbered among the saints,'' calling her ``one of the leading

religious leaders of our age.''

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