Maryknoll Sisters

It is such a joy for me to have an opportunity to share with you about who we Maryknoll Sisters are after 100 wonderful years of Mission.  I am so grateful to be invited by Sisters Margarita and Kathy to speak with you today.  I decided that rather than telling you what we do and where we do it, I would talk with you about how we have been and are being in mission; what we have learned and how we have grown and changed while remaining faithful to God’s call.

Sister Ann Hayden believes the future of the human community, of the whole earth community, awaits our response.

I was struck by the gospel reading in which Jesus calls the deaf man to “be open.”  He opened the man’s ears so that he might hear and loosened his tongue so that he might speak and set the man’s heart on fire with passion for the good news so that the man went about telling everyone of his radically changed life after his encounter with Jesus.  From her earliest experiences of family and faith, our founder Mary Josephine “Mollie” Rogers was known for her openness, her interest in other cultures and her welcoming spirit to all she met.  At Smith College she led a Mission Study Club among Catholic students and helped out at the Propagation of the Faith Office in Boston, her heart was on fire with a call to mission.  In 1911 Mollie made an interior commitment to dedicate her life to missionary work around the world. 

In 1912, she was among seven women who volunteered their services to the newly formed Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America (later known as Maryknoll).  From the beginning, Mary Josephine Rogers, the chosen leader of the group, envisioned courageous, generous women of Maryknoll traveling to the uttermost ends of the earth with “…a great and abiding personal love of Jesus Christ; continuous sustained dependence on the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and absolute trust in the never failing Providence of God”   Mother Mary Joseph (MMJ), 1947.

By 1921 the first Maryknoll Sisters were sent to China to undertake direct evangelization in collaboration with the Maryknoll men in the mission field.  The Sisters were often away from their base convent for long periods working in twos to evangelize the women and children in the villages, visiting in their kitchens, learning about their lives and needs, sharing their own gifts in a spirit of compassion.  Long arduous travel, uncomfortable living conditions, and loneliness were met not just with determination but with deep prayer, humor and a sense of joy which attracted the women to these foreigners and their faith.  

This story was repeated in Korea, Japan and Hong Kong and then in 1925 the Maryknoll Sisters were invited to the Philippines to take charge of the Catholic Teachers’ Normal School in Malabon.  In 1927 we began work at St. Paul’s Hospital and the Normal Hall Residence for young women in Manila.  In 1929 the Sisters built a house in Baguio (known for its fresh, cool air) as a place of rest for the growing number of Sisters working in the Philippines.  In 1936 the Maryknoll Convent School, later known as Marishan, was begun in Baguio.  Later the same year, the Normal School in Malabon was moved to Manila and became known simply as Maryknoll College. 

These early years up through the War years were what we affectionately call the “days of the giants” and the many lessons learned from their experiences have been passed down as a spirit of honest simplicity, compassion, and mutuality based on an awareness of the all-pervading presence of God.  During World War II our mission field expanded to include Latin America and the African continent.  From the 1940s to the 1950s we rebuilt and developed schools, hospitals and rural clinics that served the poor around the world. 

The post-Vatican II period of renewal in the 1960s, coupled with our post-war experiences in Asia, Latin America and Africa, provided an impetus of change that we embraced fully in an effort to align our vowed life and ministry choices with a new understanding of Church, religious life, and Catholic social teaching.  We participated in the rise of popular movements such as civil rights in the U.S., independence in Africa, the growth of basic Christian communities in S.A., and in efforts to develop local church identity with an accompanying theology, enculturation and,  particularly in Asia, interfaith dialogue.  It was also a time of turning over our institutions to local personnel and shedding the separation that marked religious life at that time.  

With a new articulation of the gospel call to a preferential option for the poor and to work for justice and peace-building, we made conscious choices for ministries in grassroots community settings, living, serving and neighboring among and with the poor and marginalized in both rural and urban settings, often living in small communities of two or three Sisters.  We learned the importance of solidarity with and accompaniment of the people in the midst of their joys and suffering as an acknowledgement of our shared human condition.  

It was in this time of radical change and pain of the 1970′s and 1980′s that the Maryknoll Sisters were once again called upon to share the same fate at the poor in new ways. As in the war years, they were baptized in violence witnessing the terrible suffering of people under oppressive dictatorships, revolution and counter-revolution common throughout the world.  In this political arena the Sisters’ grassroots service to those most in need, to those who grieved and to those who might have otherwise lost hope was what forged the close and genuine bond between the Maryknoll Sisters and the people among whom and with whom their served. Imprisonment and even death was not a new experience for Maryknollers.  Our martyrs include Sr. Hyacinth Kunkler who disappeared in 1945 here in the Baguio area as the Sisters fled the retreating Japanese soldiers.

Sr. Agneta Chang was taken by North Korean solders in 1950 during Korean War and Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke were murdered in 1980 inEl Salvador.  In shared fear, grief and even death, we understood in new, profound ways the suffering of the poor we served.

In the years since 1980, we have grown older, fewer and more diverse in our membership today than ever before, presently numbering 495 Sisters of 18 nationalities who work in 25 countries around the world.  We are still crossing borders at all levels of relationships and ministry making our home with the poor, the stranger, the “other.” Hospitality and inclusion become intentional practice, diversity is an enrichment of life, and sustaining communion must shape our structures as we continue to be about our work of crossing borders, building bridges, serving the human family and healing the earth.  

The next 100 years of Maryknoll Sisters in Mission is a future we can only build together and it requires of us all our hope, all our attention for listening and imagining and all our energy for creative, compassionate service.  In 1947, Mother Mary Joseph Rogers challenged her Sisters with the words “…community is what we make it, you and I together.”

She pointed out that the only tools we have at hand are love, work, prayer and suffering and closed her remarks, saying “Do we love enough?  Do we work enough?  Do we pray enough? Do we suffer enough?   Maryknoll’s future depends on our answer” MMJ, 1947.

Here, today, in the breathtaking wisdom of these ancient mountains and in the beauty of this (Maryknoll Sisters) center in Baguio City dedicated to justice, peace and the integrity of creation, I believe that the future of the human community, of the whole earth community, awaits our response.  “Do we love enough?  Do we work enough?  Do we pray enough?  Do we suffer enough?  Brothers and sisters, what will be our answer for the future?

 – Sister Ann Hayden, MM

For months, she didn't want to tell me the condition of her baby as she didn't want to make me sad, says Sister Anastasia Lindawati. Now she is ready.

A Chinese friend, Vivian, called me one day after several months without any news, as she wanted to see me so badly.  It’s a surprise for me.  She said something happened to her; that’s why she didn’t contact me for almost one year and she would tell the story when we meet.

As I had a supper with friends that evening and she would leave Guangzhou the next day, I decided to accept her invitation to have a second supper with our friends in a restaurant.  She also met her lawyer as she wants to file for a divorce so her baby can have a birth certificate. 

Her baby is being hospitalized for four months and her husband went back to his country.  For months, she didn’t want to tell me the condition of her baby as she didn’t want to make me sad but now she is ready to tell me about it as she heard that there is a good treatment for her baby in Indonesia.   She showed me her baby’s pictures in her cellphone.

I knew her when I attended an activity in the Church.  She was pregnant when we first met.  When her baby was one-month-old, I was invited to come to celebrate with her family and friends; unfortunately I couldn’t come.  Finally, I could visit her in her office on her first day of work after giving birth.

 She brought her baby to work and invited me to have lunch even though I said that I ate already.  She shared her life story, including her difficult financial situation, something that she didn’t share with her others friends.  She promised to treat me to a better meal when her financial situation gets better.  She was optimistic that she would get a better job and she did find a better job in another city.

For months, I couldn’t contact her cellphone number; our two friends also didn’t know about her, and finally another friend gave a cellphone number but it’s a wrong number. 

Amidst all the problems that she has, she still is as optimistic as the last time I met her when she talked about her financial situation. She said she moved to another city for her baby’s treatment and changed her cellphone number. 

When I invited her to pray together in that restaurant, she said she didn’t know how to pray anymore as she prayed a lot already.  I led our prayer together and then after prayer, she said that she has hope now. 

  — Sister Anastasia Lindawati, MM

There were common family values of generosity, love, courage and solidarity learned early in life, says Sister Ann Hayden.

It was such a joy and honor to be a part of this wonderful gathering of family – a celebration of connection and communion that stretches from the past to the future and from family of origin to Maryknoll family, to human family. All those living breathing relationships were with us, richly full of love and gratitude. There was a diversity of vocations in life among the families gathered yet the sense of place, of family and of faith was strong. There were common family values of generosity, love, courage and solidarity learned early in life shared together around the table. At once, we were connected!

As the Maryknoll Sisters of the Philippine Region gathered to celebrate with family members, we were certainly not alone. We were surrounded by a hundred years of love, prayer and encouragement given and received; by the laughter, the tears and the dreams of our grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, siblings, nieces, nephews and cousins who are a part of the great ancestral cloud of energy and of the communion of saints that continue to support and teach us.

One hundred years of Maryknoll Sisters (3,498 women) gathered with us. One hundred years of crossing borders, building bridges, serving the human family and healing the earth go before us and the promise that God has more in store for us calls us into the future.

Mother Mary Joseph called us long ago to be “reflections of the love of God,” to make God’s love visible in the world, and she said to us in word and in the example of her life that:

“Love, work, prayer and suffering will sustain us in the future as they have in the past. All who are here now, all who will come in the future will have no other tools than these with which to build. God has yet a great work for us to do.”

Our families all over the world have taught us these same values of love, work, prayer and sacrifice. Mother Mary Joseph recognized the suffering we share in solidarity with the people among and with whom we serve. These values and this suffering will truly be the tools needed in building the future for our generation and all the generations to come.

In the blessings of gratitude and love shared,

 – Sister Ann Hayden, MM

Sister Anne Marie Emdin (l) is a welcome visitor for elderly people who have no one. Read on for her update from Macau, China.

Last month, Mr. and Mrs. Hui invited me to share with their family the Winter Solstice Pot Luck supper.  He is 90 and she is 88.

Mr. Hui is now totally blind. He had been the Church caretaker for many years and they have a small cement house on the church property next to our elderly center.  They borrowed the Church hall for the occasion, and I counted 40-plus family members: children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren running all over the church hall in a wonderful spirit. 

As we were leaving, Mrs. Hui said to me, “The wonderful thing about having so many relatives is I can leave the hall and go to bed knowing the offspring will clean up!”

Earlier that day, our center invited all those elderly who would not have someone to celebrate the Winter Solstice with them to join together to celebrate the festival with a noon meal.  We started this custom 19 years ago with the idea that either you brought something to share or contributed some money so the center could buy extra goodies. 

For the last two years, most of the elderly contributed a bit of cash but this year several decided to do some communal cooking!  They went shopping together and were at the center to start their preparations before 7:30 am. 

They had a glorious time cooking together in the parish tea area and serving over 60 elderly who came to share the meal. The center, of course, also provided quite a few dishes to supplement the delicious food prepared by the group. Winter Solstice is the biggest festival in the Chinese “religious” calendar, and to be alone on that day is, if at all possible, not to be considered. 

The Catholic Youth Center also prepares a meal to deliver on that night to many single elderly or any poor family they know.  The youth of the teenage center spend hours cooking and delivering both food and extra goodies to these families on that day before they go home to their own family meal.

Our Pastor, Father Angel, invited all of the morning Mass people to a “bring your own breakfast and share it” after Mass on Winter Solstice. Many had to leave, even though it was a legal holiday, but around 15 of us stayed for breakfast and a bit of a song fest with Seminarian Hung on the guitar and Father on the accordion. Times like this are great for building the spirit of the group.

For Christmas Eve, Father Angel decided that we should go caroling in the north district of Macau (our parish boundary). The main problem was that our three choirs were, for the most part, taking part in the diocesan program down in the center plaza at the same time.   Not to be put off by such fickleness by our choirs, Father invited anyone interested to take part in this event. 

We were a motley crew of Chinese, Filipinas, Indonesians, one Mexican (the pastor), one Polish assistant pastor, and one tone-deaf American, ranging in age from a toddler being pushed in a baby stroller up and to a couple of 80-plus-year-old women from our elderly center.  Father Angel put on a choir robe that came only to his knees and a pair of authentic feathered wings and led the group while playing his accordion. The group also included five other “angels” in cardboard wings and two guitars and a tambourine! 

At the Macau-China border, we created a sensation—not necessarily for our singing ability, as part of the group could only sing in Chinese and the other songsters only in English, and we sang in both languages simultaneously, but shall we just say the Macau-China border has not seen such a spectacularly weird vision of angels and red-capped Santas singing in the 450+ years of its existence! 

There was a rush for cameras or mobile phones by people going in or coming out of China to record this event and a dash for the candy that the smaller (and not-so -small) “angels” were passing out. Our presence was truly verified on film, and we too had a great fun, getting back well in time to prepare for Midnight Mass.

 – Sister Anne Marie Emdin, MM

We mark the beginning of our 100th year with joy and deep gratitude, says Sister Rebecca Macugay.

Mollie Rogers, who became our founder, Mother Mary Joseph, had a glimpse of her Star on a balmy June evening in 1904, when, as a student at Smith College, she witnessed the joy and energy of students who just signed the Student Volunteer pledge to be foreign missioners in China.

The scenario stirred something deep within Mollie and she proceeded directly to St. Mary’s Church and knelt before the Blessed Sacrament. Recalling this experience, she later related, “ I measured my faith and the expression of it by the sight I had just witnessed…From that moment I had work to do, little or great God alone knew.”

Mollie, establishing a mission study club for Catholic girls at Smith College and working with Fr. James Anthony Walsh in the apostolate of promoting foreign mission through The Field Afar magazine, were the backdrop of her deepening call to mission. In September 15, 1910, Mollie who had been closely following the unfolding events of the work done by Fr. James Anthony Walsh and Fr. Thomas F. Price to establish a foreign missionary seminary, privately, consecrated her whole life to the foreign mission movement that they envisioned.

With their deep trust in God’s abiding presence and love, their commitment to hard work and being inspiration to each other, the three founded the Maryknoll Mission Movement, an ever-widening movement to make God’s love visible. We mark the beginning of our 100th year with much joy and deep gratitude. We are on the threshold of a new moment in mission and we keep the hopeful spirit of our calling to cross borders to foster a global community; to build bridges of peace among communities and work to uphold the integrity of each person; to engage in the healing of our home, planet Earth, where we experience God’s revelations of love, compassion, mercy and communion.

Mother Mary Joseph Rogers described our missionary vocation as “essentially a work of great expectations and lively hope.” On this specially blessed milestone of our charism, it is a fitting moment for us, Maryknoll Sisters who are here at our Center as well as those in other parts of the country and the world, to Renew our commitment to the Mission of Jesus, to living the mystery of God’s presence among peoples of many lands and all communities of life.

 – Sister Rebecca Macugay, MM