Maryknoll Sisters

This is the first week of Easter. I am at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, N.Y.  We Sisters are trying to answer God’s call to live Jesus’ mission of Love.

All of us who identify ourselves as "Christian" rise with Christ and re-dedicate ourselves to Christ's Mission of Love.

Some Sisters are quite elderly; Sister Marge is 104 years.  We have Sisters who are  among the “ youth” and also, the “out-of youth.” There are Sisters here who work in offices, to help make possible our ministry in the 25 countries now being served. 

Some Sisters are here for Renewal. “Renewal” comes regularly between three to five years, to provide a visit at Maryknoll  for spiritual and professional development, as well as, to provide time for bonding with family members, before the Sister returns to her mission country. We also have Sisters with health needs: cancer and heart problems and more–just like other members of the human family experience. In addition, there is a group of Sisters here who are having their “Reflection Year,” in preparation for making their Final Vows, that is, their lifetime commitment to God as a Maryknoll Sister.

Our house if full. All of us are missioners aware that we need the power of personal prayer in our lives. Each one of us has a very human need to be a comtempletative in action, to in power the life and mission she is called to live. As missioners, we recognize that our response to Jesus’ mission call is empowered by contemplative prayer. The prayerful days before Easter are always extraordinary.  These days have been both ordinary and extraordinary in many ways. Each year these three very special days,  Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, serve as a Triduum of special morning prayers.  The Holy Saturday evening service and Mass, with our beautiful choir, make me hope that in your parish churches, you too have enjoyed the Celebration as much as I did.

At the Mass this morning, as we celebrated Christ, the Risen One, all of us who identify ourselves as “Christian” rise with Christ, and re-dedicate ourselves to Christ’s Mission of Love.  May we make God’s love visible and in this way be a blessing to others because we have been blessed with the Gift of Faith. Alleluia!

 – Sister Virgeen Healey, MM

Happy Easter! We have become Easter people and what precious gift we have received. Alleluia!

The life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus are a mysterious truth of Life, blogs Sister Rebecca. This is the rich heritage of our faith that we received in baptism, when we put on a new self, a garment in the risen Christ.

The gospel reading for Easter ultimately ends on a joyful note, and a hopeful promise, is filled with poignant and baffling images….that of deep sorrow for the loss of a loved one, fear of the horrific suffering of their master that they’ve witnessed the previous day, and the anxiety over the bewildering scene that their friend was not in the tomb where he was laid to rest. Instead, they found an empty tomb, littered with the strips of linen and cloth with which they have bound and covered the lifeless body of their beloved teacher.

Experiences of emptiness in our lives also hold the innate promise of transformation to a new life. In the moments of emptiness, the disciples were held by their memory of love. The disciples clung to the memory of their experiences of Jesus, of love and acceptance and pardon. They remembered their witnessing of his healing and cleansing and forgiving; their feasting and playing and laughter and the moments of reaching out to Abba, in the mountains and on the lakeshore, to be grateful and be humble to what is holy within and around them.

The Easter narratives are gifts of both hindsight and insight. We receive a new sight, a 20/20 vision that moves and enlivens the core of our being. This happens more often than not, when we stop in our tracks from our pre-occupied and sometimes distracted lives and behold moments and spaces of mysterious emptiness. Easter happens in that sacred space where God alone can gift us with the light that we need to transcend the darkness. The ensuing happenings after the disciples’ experience of the empty tomb awakened their consciousness to God’s new presence. Entering the tomb, they “saw and believed” and they only desired to share the good news to everyone. The life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus were recognized as a mysterious and deep truth of Life. This is the rich heritage of our faith that we received in baptism, when we put on a new self, a garment in the risen Christ: “… your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then, you also will appear with him in glory.” We, indeed become Easter people!

Many times, when I lived and worked in East Africa and later on in southern Africa, I’ve been enriched with moments of Easter. In a village of resettled landless people from densely populated areas, I encountered, repeatedly, people who even if they are deprived access to resources vital to life by social, political and cultural systems, do not cease to share their meager resources with others with less. It is not unusual for me to experience a mother offering her maize flour to a family who has not eaten for a number of days, knowing that she won’t have enough for her own family for the evening meal. When a drought and famine occurred in our area, the regional authorities requested our parish to administer the distribution of food relief. The villagers who volunteered to help with the weekly distribution always made sure that the widows and orphans and the poorest families were given their portions first.

Easter is Ma Ntombi, a young, gentle and reserved single mother from a rural area in South Africa, who came to Cape Town in search for a better life for herself and her two children. They’ve been living in a one-room shack made of corrugated iron, cardboard and plastic sheeting. The strong winds and bitter cold of the winter months at the Cape and the oppressive heat during the summer had undermined their health and minimized her opportunities to seek employment. When the residents of the informal settlement started organizing to petition the municipality for better housing, Ma Ntombi deeply felt the importance of her participation in the endeavor. She spoke with so much passion about her love of her family, and that building a good home for her family is also building the community and ultimately building the fairly new nation that is still steeped in inequality and discrimination.

We engage our world the way we see and understand it. Easter is the experience of seeing God as God sees, so we can transcend the confining borders of conventions that prevent us from encountering and engaging the widening web of life. Easter is announced by people who consistently choose to simplify their lives so that the resources of the earth can sustain life for all. A coastline community in the Cape chose not to have tarmac roads and to not be included in the electrical grid of the municipality. Rather they chose to invest in developing renewal sources of energy from sun and wind for their light and other energy needs.

Easter happens when a situation of conflict is engaged through dialogue and mediation rather than violence. A group of young development practitioners came to learn skills of listening and appreciative inquiry as they prepare to negotiate with a mining company trying to buy off from the people their traditional and communal land used for growing their food.

Easter suffuses our lives. It calls us to a practice of contemplation, that we may discover the many ways of communing with God, through the many expressions of life that surrounds us. How do we find Easter in our daily life? How do we deepen the experience of Easter in our lives amidst the din that progress and modernization creates? Let our experiences of Easter embolden us to announce the good news; to work to transform the despair of an empty tomb to entering into a new consciousness suffused with the light of our risen Lord.

Easter us, Lord of the resurrection. Thrust us into a consciousness that claims and proclaim joy, energy, courage, freedom in your New Creation. Alleluia!

  — Sister Rebecca Macugay, MM

Sister Virgeen Healey blogs about the Girl Scouts, the Maryknoll Sisters, and all who have served human needs over the past 100 years. "May God bless us, so that we can continue to be a blessing to others."

It is not only the Maryknoll Sisters who are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.  Those beautiful cherry trees in Washington, D.C., that were given to us by Japan 100 years ago have had visitors recalling how tourists have enjoyed these blossoms for 100 years.

In addition, the Girl Scouts were started 100 years ago.  Girl Scouts have been important in my own life.  When I attended Harrison School, in the Normandy District of St. Louis, I joined the Girl Scouts. I met one of my oldest friends, June Wilkerson, in scouting. After elementary school, June and I became senior Scouts.

As a Maryknoll Sister, I was assigned to Guadalupe, California, where again I was a Scout.  Because I was also “Den Mother” with the Cub Scouts, I was a member of the Boy Scouts, but our work with the Girl Scouts was more extensive. I’m still in touch with these Scouts, however, most of them are grandparents now. 

They say that they have told their children how much the Girl Scouts meant to them: overnights in the Scout House, food sales, summer camp, etc…  This also meant so much to me.

When I was assigned to the Philippines, again I became involved with the Girl Scouts, especially in Santiago, which is in Isabela. Scouting offers a good supportive foundation to a young persons’  life. For both the youth and the “out-of-youth,’ the contribution to healthy relationships and personal development can be significant. It has been for me.

So, for the cherry trees, the Girl Scouts, the Maryknoll Sisters, and all other groups that have served human needs over the past 100 years, may God bless us, so that we can continue to be a blessing to others as we reach out in service to others in our world. The Cherry Blossoms have brought beauty, God speaking through nature. It is now spring.

Let us listen as God speaks to us. 

 – Sister Virgeen Healey, MM

One of the chief tasks of our time must be to build a global community in which people can live together. This task, says Sister Janice McLaughlin, is more critical than ever in the aftermath of 9/11.

It’s my great pleasure and privilege to welcome you to this interfaith prayer service in this Annunciation Chapel on the feast of the Annunciation. It’s most fitting that this service is being celebrated as an integral part of the centennial events for Maryknoll missioners. It’s fitting, I say, because Maryknoll’s mission is to cross borders – spiritual and religious as well as geographic – and to build bridges of friendship, mutual respect and understanding with the people we encounter around the world.

In fact, we the missioners are transformed by these encounters as much as those to whom we are sent. Our faith is enlarged, deepened and enriched through a mutual sharing of beliefs and religious practices – as we will be doing today.

The Shona people of Zimbabwe, with whom I’ve worked for almost 30 years, have many names for God. My favorite is Chipindikure – the One Who Turns Things Upside Down – Chipindikure. I have been turned upside down countless times by encounters with traditional healers in Zimbabwe with whom I worked in a project to protect the environment; I was transformed by participating in an ecumenical prayer group in Nairobi, Kenya (my first mission experience), which met monthly to reflect on scripture and apply its message to our daily lives.

Last year in South Sudan I was transformed as I witnessed the genuine efforts of Muslims and Christians to live and work together after almost forty years of war. There I met Fatima, a Muslim woman from the North, working at a Catholic radio station in the South. She told me that her goal is to promote unity in this deeply divided nation and heal the wounds of war. There are many like her, risking their lives to build bridges across religious and ethnic divides.

Every Maryknoll missioner – priest, Brother, lay missioner, affiliate or Sister – has similar experiences of being turned upside down by this dialog of life with people of many faiths and of none.

We are aware, however, that it was not always this way. Maryknoll was founded during an age of competition for converts. It was only with the advent of the Second Vatican Council that this changed but we know that there are still many places where competition is the norm and where outright hostility and even violence characterizes the relations between people of different faiths.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council which opened the windows of the Catholic Church to the world and to other faiths. It is the fourth anniversary of the Charter for Compassion. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. This prophetic document transcends religious, ideological and national differences. Initiated by Karen Armstrong, religious historian and author, it was created by leaders of many religious traditions in 2008. 

I bring this to our attention today because the Charter offers concrete ideas for building bridges between people of different faiths. It calls on each of us to adopt compassion as a guiding principle in our lives and to refrain from inflicting pain on others. It is based on the conviction that one of the chief tasks of our time must be to build a global community in which people and nations can live together in harmony and mutual respect. This task is more critical than ever in the aftermath of 9/11.

The Charter calls on elders to pass on to the next generation an appreciation of cultural and religious diversity.  It concludes with a call to cultivate empathy with the suffering of all human beings – even those regarded as enemies.

May this interfaith prayer service inspire each of us to put this Charter into practice in our daily lives.  May it lead to deeper understanding among us and encourage us to work together to heal a broken and divided world. Let us continue to cross borders and build bridges of mutual respect and understanding. Let us join hands and hearts to make our dream of a peaceful, caring and compassionate world come true!

 – Sister Janice McLaughlin, MM

During my three weeks in the Philippines, I enjoyed good food and felt acculturated, felt enveloped in history, met fascinating people, and enjoyed more good food. The Philippine people and the islands they call home are surrounded by water and sustained by the fruits of sea and land alike. In this land I experienced life as abundant, vigorous and amazingly complicated yet simple at the same time.  My visit was busy and filled with wonderful experiences with our Sisters from ministry visits, historical tours of parks and museums, a regional assembly, and two Centennial events.

Physically-challenged people get a chance to learn job skills at Sister Cecelia's training center in Davao City, the Philippines. Sister Cecelia Wood (l) mentors them.

There were very special days of conversation with our “retired” Sisters in Metro Manila: Sr. Marisa Lichauco, who ministers in her local parish and in environmental projects; Sr. Nenita Tapia, who ministers in her neighborhood and parish; and  Sr. Teresita Rellosa, who gives dedicated  service to the poor in all that she does. I spent time as well with Sr. Virginia Fabella who ministers in Manila while she manages the “retirement” house in Jala-Jala.

No one I saw among our Sisters seemed “retired.”  That must be a non-existent breed of Maryknoll Sisters we have heard of but have never verified anywhere in the world and certainly not in the Philippines.

Sr. Helen Graham is neither retired nor retiring.  Her energy and focus are clear to all who meet her.  She is the consummate professor of Old Testament Scripture and teaches at the Institute of Formation and Religious Studies in Manila, leads evening Bible Study Groups, and is a guest speaker at local and international Colleges and  Universities.  I am deeply impressed with our Sisters’ dedication to mission and their unfailing energy to connect with the ministry needs of those around them.  

Sr. Nenita and I went by plane to Davao for a visit with Sr. Cecilia Wood and the staff of Our Lady of Victory Training Center (OLVTC), a rehabilitation and training center for “differently-abled” adults and children. We were given a grand tour of the impressively complete rehabilitation facilities with residence, dining area, clinic, physical therapy, youth center and more.  We also saw the arts and crafts shops, the bakery, and the metal and woodworking shop, which are among the income-producing projects that the residents participate in to help sustain the Center. 

OLVTC has built an extension on Samal Island which has a residence for handicapped students, a retreat-vacation center, and small houses for staff to enjoy. A dip in those serene waters is what I needed after our visit to the OLVTC orchard area. It was like going on a jungle safari as the tractor and trailer took us up steep hills and through overgrown trees on an invisible path.  One of the staff members went ahead of us to clear the overhanging branches to protect our faces.  At the top of the hill we came out of the “jungle” and the view was spectacular!  Then we began the careful trip downhill again.  The orchard’s abundance was certainly worth the effort to see its productivity.   

My visit with Srs. Cathy Encarnacion and Margarita Jamias at the Maryknoll Sisters Ecological Center in Baguio was a delightful experience of cool breezes and the beauty of nature.  Of major concern is that, over the last 100 years, encroaching human needs have caused grave damage to ecological balances that went undisturbed for thousands of years before the “modern” era.   Deforestation, land erosion, water contamination from mining endeavors, and other issues have been identified.   The Maryknoll Sisters and the staff of the ecological center make every effort to respond through education, the promotion of organic farming techniques, and collaboration in community projects with local groups to raise these concerns to the national level.

During my stay, I was given a tour of Miriam College (formally known as Maryknoll College) and met the President of the College, Ms. Rosario Lapus.  It was an amazing visit and I was deeply impressed with the continued growth of the campus, each level of education offered, and the high quality of the curriculum and services for the students. Adult education and other social outreach programs along with environmental training programs and international collaboration are hallmarks of Miriam College today.

The Maryknoll roots of Miriam College are visible all around campus in the classrooms, especially in the joy of learning inspired by all the Maryknoll Sisters since the school’s founding. The spirit of Maryknoll is visible in the faces of students and teachers alike.

How grateful I am to have rested in the care and beauty of my Sisters and to have been given the opportunity to learn of their life together, their ministries, their families, friends and co-workers as well as their great strength and many challenges. 

  — Sister Ann Hayden, MM