Nailed to the cross, Jesus Crucified spoke to me 29 years ago through the voice of a dying friend.
A week before Holy Week when I was beside the bed of a young lady in her late thirties, dying of cancer. I asked, “What would you like me to give you? Do you have a wish to make?” In a slow but steady voice, she answered, “I want to be a nun.” I thought she was delirious and I asked again, “ What would you like to eat or to wear?” She repeated the same answer and this time I was dumbfounded. “I want to be a nun!” were words familiar to me for I did contemplate joining religious life for the past three years but had been putting it off.
Surrendering my freedom was costly but the face of my dying friend reminded me of my Crucified Jesus appealing to me. He seemed to say, “Look here! I have been calling you and you are healthy but you are full of excuses. This friend of yours is dying and she is not able to fulfill her wish.”
Like Paul knocked down from his horse, I left the hospital that evening and headed straight to the convent and said… “Sister, I want to be a nun.” I then prayed for courage and wisdom to make my desire known to my non-Catholic parents who wanted me to support my siblings.
My close encounter with religion came when I joined the Girl Guides in Secondary One. The Guide Promise has as its first promise to serve God and I needed to find a God to serve. Together with another Guide friend we attended the Saturday Novena sessions. I was baptized at the age of 17. Before my baptism I was attending Sunday masses and receiving spiritual communion and taking part in Corpus Christi processions. As Guides we were privileged to be called upon to form a guard of honour before the Blessed Sacrament. I did not understand what the Blessed Sacrament was but I knew it must be very special when everybody knelt to adore this “BREAD OF GOD”.
It was by the power of prayer and trust in God, that both my parents were helped to understand God’s ways were not our ways. My father was really disappointed. My mother had to be strong when we faced a family tragedy where my brother a Colombo Plan Scholarship student in Australia met a fatal motor accident. My mother gave me sound advise, helping me to understand that religious life was not a bed of roses, her gentle way of discouraging me but I needed to give it a try.
I choose to enter on Easter Sunday, so asa to be risen with Jesus. Life is an adventure with the Lord. I have been a teacher for 34 years, I found my fulfillment when I was able to teach Catechism and share the love of Jesus.
Canossian Education has always been my passion and till end of my days I will try my level best to be a visible sign of Greatest Love, that which my Foundress, St Magdalene, contemplated on the cross.
