Countless lives were touched by 12-year-old Anna Molloy’s big heart

Lucious Newsom, right, and Anna Molloy break ground for Anna’s House in 2005. The clinic was named in honor of Anna, who helped feed the poor from her wheelchair during her life. She died on July 31. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

If you want to know the impact that Anna Molloy had on people in her 12 years of life, there are countless stories of how she inspired others to give from their heart.

Just look at the organizations that bear her name. Anna’s Celebration of Life Foundation helps children with disabilities, and Anna’s House is a community center near downtown Indianapolis that offers food, dental care, medical help and educational services for people in need.

“I named it for her because of her hard work and her love of Jesus,” said Lucious Newsom, the founder of Anna’s House.

If you want to know how deeply Anna touched the hearts of people, the evidence was on display at St. Jude Parish in Indianapolis on Aug. 4, the day of her funeral Mass.

Inside the church, photographs showed a smiling Anna hugging her mother and father, Pete and Julie. Another snapshot captured her and her brother, Peter, looking at each other with love.

The stories and the photographs showed the spirit of a girl who had defied the odds from the time she was born with a rare genetic disorder that causes dwarfism until her death on July 31.

“If we had to use only one word to describe Anna, it would be compassion,” said Margaret Molloy Brown, Anna’s aunt. “Her ministry was the outpouring of her compassion.”

Brown’s words were part of her emotional eulogy to her blond-haired, brown-eyed niece who helped the poor from her motorized wheelchair.

Brown said that Anna wasn’t defined by her illness, but by the elements that her niece included in the scrapbook she made for herself: “friends, love, family, sports, good times, memories, vacations, boat rides, the Indianapolis Colts.”

In his homily during the funeral Mass, Father Stephen Banet focused on the example that Anna gave to everyone she met during her brief yet full-to-the-brim life. He noted how she had a flair for wearing different outfits, but how she always “put on Christ.”

“Today, we truly honor her family, Anna and, again, the mystery of God—how we are touched and how we are given the baton to continue that compassion, that gentleness,” said Father Banet, the pastor of St. Jude Parish.

Anna’s spirit of joy and generosity is now beginning to leave its mark in heaven, said Brown during her eulogy. She recalled how Anna once drew a picture of what she imagined her room in heaven would be like. When Brown saw the picture, there was only one thing in the room. Unable to figure out what that one thing was, Brown asked her niece about it.

“She said, ‘It’s God. He’s enough,’ ” Brown recalled.

Anna’s aunt also mentioned one of her niece’s favorite songs, “I Can Only Imagine,” a popular song about what it would be like to meet Jesus for the first time in heaven.

“All of us imagine, from toddlers to grandparents, when she sees her Jesus and he swoops her up and the dancing begins,” Brown said. “I can only imagine.” †