To Leave Home Forever?

By Sr. Mary Reparatrix SSpSAP

Some 50 years ago, a young Filipina decided to join a contemplative order of nuns. Half a century later she is in Brazil and she looks back and remembers that first journey to the monastery with its wrenching decision.

During the Japanese occupation in the Philippines in 1945-46 (World War II), I found myself with my family in an evacuation cottage in Bohol, 14 Kilometers from home. My brother, Fr. Felix S. Zafra, who was then assistant parish priest and chaplain to the Belgian Sisters at St. Catherine’s School, Carcar, Cebu, wrote my parents asking them to send me to Carcar to resume my studies and to be an intern with the Belgian Sisters. So I did. I was then 16 years old and in first year high school. There were around 30 interns with me in the dormitory, young girls from all over our province of Bohol. It did not take a long time until I felt at home with the nuns and my fellow boarders.

My priest brother

Besides being the chaplain and our confessor, my brother gave us religious instruction during the first period of our class. I remember how he humiliated me when I was not attentive to his explanation about the Blessed Trinity. While he was demonstrating this with a piece of paper folded into three to make us understand they mystery of God in three Divine Persons, he saw me talking to the girls at the back row. He then asked me if I understood what he just said. Embarrassed, I stood up and stammered to repeat his explanation.

Once a week a couple, friends of my brother, would take me out for a “paseo” around the city of Carcar or to see a cine show. I guess he was trying to find out what my inclinations were. But I was not so at ease with the noise outside, nor was I interested in going to any movie. I always opted to go back as soon as possible to the Convent. At school, the girls, especially the externs, were fond of passing around their autograph books. I recall what I wrote each time I read the question: “What is your plan for the future?” I always wrote, “To be a nun...”

When my brother got his new appointment as coadjutor to the parish priest in a town back in our province, he transferred me to be an intern at St. Josephs Academy in Tagbilaran – this time with the Servants of the Holy Spirit Sister (SSpS), where I started as a sophomore. My elder sister, who was already in college, was also an intern in the same academy.

Pink Habit

I was found of the Sisters. As a junior student my teacher in English Literature, Sister Humilis, SSpS, often invited me on Saturdays to help her correct the test papers of the junior students. One day she told me about another branch that Fr. Arnold had founded: a contemplative congregation whose main apostolate was perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and that the nuns wore pink instead of blue habits. That was the spark which kindled in my heart, the desire to adore the Lord in His Eucharistic Throne all the days of my life.

Admitted to Baguio

I then confided to Sr. Humilis my desire and I asked her to tell me more about the life of the Sisters. I thought to myself that I have to make a try if I can afford to leave home forever. My mother gave me permission to spend my Christmas vacation with the Sisters, but she requested me to at least prepare a crib and a Christmas tree at home for the last time. Meanwhile my application papers were already in Baguio. I had mentioned in one of my letters that I was decided to enter soon after my graduation, unless the superior would advise me to study further. Sister Superior M. Ludgera’s quick response was: “Come...” And I did.

As I look back half century later and from half a world away here in Brazil, I thank God for that decision.