Wahlberg Brother Found Jesus in Prison After Meeting Mother Teresa
By Movieguide® Contributor
Jim Wahlberg, Christian filmmaker and brother to Mark and Donnie Wahlberg, found Jesus in an unexpected way.
While incarcerated, he heard Mother Theresa speak, and it changed his life.
Wahlberg lived a lifestyle full of drugs and crime, which landed him in prison. In 1988, while in a prison in Massachusetts, Mother Theresa attended the prison Mass.
“There was a certain point in that Mass when I thought I was looking at God,” he told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “I thought she was God. That’s my understanding of who she was at that moment. Once I had this experience—that the missing element for me to try to live a different life was a relationship with Christ—other things made sense to me…It made sense to me that I could be sober and live a different way when I got out of prison.”
Wahlberg explained how something about him changed after that experience.
“After having this experience with Mother Teresa, I ran back to the priest and said, ‘I need to know more about this Jesus she’s talking about,’” said Wahlberg. “It’s not what I grew up with. I want to—I need to know more about this Jesus who died for me and who loves me in spite of all the things I’ve done wrong.’”
Today, he works as a Christian filmmaker. He has also partnered with the prayer app Hallow and recently posted his testimony on his Instagram account.
“I remember seeing humility for the first time in my life—as the cardinal processed in, with his big hat and his big staff up onto the stage, which served as the altar. He had his own special chair, and next to him, he had a special chair for Mother Teresa. And he beckoned her to come. And she politely refused. Instead, as she did with praying hands on her forehead, she just humbly backed up and knelt on the floor with all the inmates. This confused me, I didn’t understand why. This was her moment to shine, this whole event was about her,” he said.
Mother Theresa’s humility caught his attention, which led him to seek a relationship with Jesus and turn his life around.
He even served as a producer on a movie about her life.
MOTHER TERESA: NO GREATER LOVE is “a unique film that reveals not just who Mother Teresa was, but how her singular vision to serve Christ through the poor is realized to this day, through the religious order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity,” Religion News reported.
Movieguide® previously reported on Wahlberg:
Author and filmmaker Jim Wahlberg, older brother to Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg, recently published a memoir that tells the story of God’s redemption, which brought him out of addiction and a life of crime.
The memoir is titled The Big Hustle and documents Wahlberg’s early life in and out of prison and his eventual conversion. Wahlberg, who grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts—with his eight siblings—says that his family life was dysfunctional.
The life of rebellion started at a young age for Wahlberg. As a 12-year-old, he found himself already experimenting with drugs and alcohol. The young boy took to the streets, running away from home, and ended up as a ward of the state. Walhberg spent his early years as a teenager in the foster care system and juvenile detention before, at age 17, he was sentenced to Massachusetts State Prison for armed robbery…
One day, Mother Teresa visited the Massachusetts State Prison chapel.
“I didn’t know who that was,” Wahlberg admitted, “but the second she walked into the room, I knew there was something different about her. She spoke of love and mercy. She gave us hope; she let us know there was nothing too big for God.”
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