Final vows
Sister Mary Elizabeth de Jesus in a pensive moment at the Mass for her final profession Oct. 15 at St. Stephen Diocesan Center. (Photo courtesy of Dann Ebina)
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
On Oct. 15, Logan Yempuku’s grandma made her permanent vows as a cloistered Carmelite sister.
The times are changing at Hawaii’s Carmel of the Holy Trinity monastery.
At a morning Mass celebrated by Bishop Larry Silva in the sunlit former seminary chapel at St. Stephen Diocesan Center, Sister Mary Elizabeth of Jesus (Ecce Homo) and of the Indwelling Spirit, her formal religious name, recited her solemn profession and received her nun’s veil.
It was a significant event in a significant year for Hawaii’s Carmelites.
The Spanish-Portuguese-Chinese-Filipino-Irish-Hawaiian Sister Mary Elizabeth is the first local vocation for the community, which was founded in 1973 on the grounds of St. Stephen Diocesan Center by seven Chinese nuns from Hong Kong.
Nine years ago, Sister Mary Elizabeth left a previous existence that had included a marriage and motherhood to enter a life of prayer behind monastery walls with the group of aging Chinese sisters. The pull of a contemplative vocation was strong and her faith deep enough to persevere in a community that had shrunk too small to support her desire for permanent vows.
But this past year, thanks to lots of prayer and the persistence of Bishop Silva and others, Hawaii’s residual Carmelite community of one survivor and one perpetual novice found itself rejuvenated by five, new, eager, younger sisters from five monasteries in the Philippines.
The introduction of the new members led to the monastery’s re-founding Aug. 9. It also, after all these years, allowed Sister Mary Elizabeth to proceed with her final vows.
“I am deeply, joyfully touched that the great day has finally arrived,” she told the Hawaii Catholic Herald by email. “I rejoice and am glad for those long waiting years giving me the opportunity to discern and grow spiritually.”
“I feel tremendously blessed and graced to finally be a professed Carmelite,” Sister Mary Elizabeth said. “I am utterly thankful of our sisters from the Philippines to offer themselves as missionaries to come and re-found Hawaii Carmel. This is a magnanimous grace for which we are grateful.”
Family affair
Woven throughout the Mass of profession were old rites and prayers and lilting harmonies from the Carmelite hymn book. The seven nuns in brown habits filled the right front pew. Behind them on both sides were Sister Mary Elizabeth’s extended family, including her mother, her four daughters, Nicole, Noelle, Monica and Marie, her brother, two sisters, a godson, a stepson, some cousins and others … and her grandson Logan, age 4.
Sister Liza Sado, left, and Mother Agnella place the Carmelite’s veil on the head of Sister Mary Elizabeth. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
Immediate family members were identified with head leis of pakalana, maile and fern.
St. Stephen Diocesan Center employees, friends of the Carmelites and others filled in the rest of the chapel. Eleven priests concelebrated.
Musician Robert Mondoy, with the benefit of one evening’s rehearsal with the sisters, played accompaniment on an electronic keyboard.
After the reading of the Gospel, prioress Mother Agnella Iu began the rite of solemn profession by calling the candidate to step forward.
“Lord, you have called me, here I am,” responded Sister Mary Elizabeth.
Bishop Silva then asked, “My dear daughter, what do you ask of God and of his holy Church?”
The 62-year-old novice answered, “I ask for God’s merciful love and the grace of perseverance in following Christ until death with the companionship of my sisters in this Teresian Community of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mt. Carmel.”
The congregation concurred: “Thanks be to God.”
Water of baptism
The bishop started his homily by noting that when the Hawaiian word for fresh water, “wai,” is doubled — “waiwai” — its meaning changes to wealth.
“The ancient Hawaiians realized that water is wealth,” he said.
“Jesus, of course, takes the value of water to an entirely new level of wealth,” he said, when he offered the Samaritan woman the “living water” of eternal life.
“We first encounter this living water in our baptism,” Bishop Silva said.
Newly professed Sister Mary Elizabeth de Jesus, right, holds the hand of her grandson, Logan Yempuku, while standing next to her prioress Mother Agnella Iu. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
“As we celebrate the final profession of Sister Elizabeth, we thank God that she has kept the channels of grace she received at Baptism flowing freely with the living water of Christ’s love by her prayer, her devotion to her family, and now as a Carmelite Sister,” he said.
The Carmelite Sisters, he said, open “the floodgates of God’s life and love to others.”
“In their quiet and mysterious way, they call all in town, all in the community, and all throughout the world to come to the living water that is Jesus,” he said.
“What wise, simple and pure wealth we celebrate today as yet another sister dedicates herself to being the conduit of the living water of Jesus to all the world,” he said.
After his homily, the bishop asked Sister Elizabeth five questions — the “Scrutiny” — about her readiness to begin her new life.
His final question summed it up, “Are you resolved to live for God alone, with Mary, in solitude and silence, in persevering prayer and willing penance, in humble work and holiness of life?”
“Yes, I am,” she said.
Her fellow sisters then rolled out a rug, covered it with a brown cloth and trimmed it with maile leis. Sister Mary Elizabeth lay prostrate on the rug, face down, arms extended, as the Litany of the Saints, a lengthy invocation of holy women and men and martyrs, was sung.
Standing again, she read her profession of solemn vows from a handwritten sheet, pledging to live a life of “chastity, poverty and obedience.”
“With my whole heart,” she said, “I give myself to this religious family restored by St. Teresa to seek perfect charity in the service of Our Mother the Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the help of the Mother of God through constant prayer and evangelical self-denial and to give eternal glory to the Most Holy Trinity.”
Next, the signing of documents on the altar made it all official.
Then in a soft, high voice and wearing a broad smile Sister Mary Elizabeth sang “The Little Murmur,” a song expressing the joy of life in the “divine embrace.”
She then knelt before the altar as the bishop, arms outstretched over her, recited the prayer of consecration.
One of Sister Mary Elizabeth’s daughters and her grandson carried up a black veil and a crown of flowers which the bishop blessed. Mother Agnella and sub-prioress Sister Liza Sado then fitted the new veil over the white novice’s veil and crowned her with a thick garland of yellow roses, pikake and fern.
With her mother prioress affirming Sister Mary Elizabeth’s “life-long” membership in the Carmelite community, the other nuns each embraced their new permanent member and sister.
After Communion the sisters sang the 700-year-old Carmelite hymn, “Flos Carmeli” — “Flower of Carmel.”
Following Mass, the newly professed posed for photos and then joined her guests for lunch in the diocesan center’s dining room.
An Aiea High grad
Sister Mary Elizabeth was born Ernette de Jesus and raised by devout Catholic grandparents in Waimalu, Oahu.
She graduated from Aiea High School, attended Kapiolani Community College, got married and had four children. A divorce and annulment left her considering the religious life, a path that had piqued her curiosity since childhood.
She began attending daily Mass in the Carmelite chapel and felt herself drawn to the spirituality of Carmel.
She entered the convent on Oct. 1, 2010, the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, also a Carmelite.
She took her religious name from Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a French Carmelite nun who died in 1906 at the age of 26 and was beatified in 1984.
After a year of postulancy, Sister Mary Elizabeth advanced to the status of novice making her temporary vows on July 16, 2013. By that time, the community had shrunk to a number below the six needed to approve new permanent members. With her final profession on hold, Sister Mary Elizabeth repeated her temporary vows every year for the next five years.
Now, as a fully professed Carmelite, she maintains what she described as a “rainbow of duties.” That includes work she did in the past including baking breads and cookies, driving the sisters to their doctors’ appointments, and taking care of the sisters when they are sick. To those duties, Mother Agnella added “sacristan, portress and bursar” — monastery-speak for the one who prepares for Mass, answers the door and handles the bookkeeping.
The full community of seven Hawaii Carmelites, with Sister Mary Elizabeth in the center, pose with Bishop Larry Silva and the priests who concelebrated the Mass of final profession Oct. 15. (Photo courtesy of Dann Ebina)
Sister Mary Elizabeth’s contribution “flows from her magnanimous and motherly heart,” said Mother Agnella, and “her great love and generosity.”
The final profession capped off a year in which the recruitment of five sisters from the Philippines, three arriving last November and two in May, prepared the way for the August re-founding of the monastery, 46 years after it was originally established.
The new sisters are Sister Mary Angelica Guevarra, Sister Assumpta John Theresa Macapanas, Sister Mary Francis Apordo, Sister Mary Elizabeth Sedo and Sister Ann Therese Ocampo.
The new members have revitalized the convent, the prioress said, giving it an atmosphere “permeated by the joyful sound of music which draws forth the beauty of our liturgical and community life.”
“Their presence also deepens the pursuit of our life of prayer and ongoing formation,” Mother Agnella said.
In addition to their musical talents, Sister Mary Elizabeth said, the Filipino Sisters “have graced our monastery with their cultural ways of cooking and their sense of humor.”
“We have more regularity in community life,” she added.
Women discerning their vocation in life, and who feel the call to the cloistered life of prayer, may write or visit the Carmelite Monastery at 6301 Pali Highway, Kaneohe, Hawaii 96744.
