VIRIDITAS2: SOUL GREENING
Interviewed by Sister Malia Dominica Wong, OP
Hawaii Catholic Herald
India is a diverse country with different castes, cultures and clans. I am from a tribal culture. In my family’s clan system, which is matrilineal, our title is inherited. Our language, food, dress, lifestyle, ceremonial rites and even burial systems are different from those of other tribes. Generation after generation, we continue on. My clan has settled in different states over the years, but regardless of whether we belong to different religions or not, we will gather in the youngest daughter’s house of that generation as she is the title holder of all the ancestral property.
I am the third of six children in my family. From early on, I stayed in the hostel with the sisters who educated me. As the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians has numerous provincial governments across India, I did not want to join the province that was nearest to where I grew up. I had the missions in mind and wanted to serve in a province farther away.
My village parish always prayed for vocations. My mother was very supportive of my decision to enter the convent. My father just wished that I would return home. It is upon the holiness of my parents that I am here.
After entering the congregation, I took ill during my novitiate. Returning home to rest, I taught for a few years before returning to the congregation. This time, still driven by a missionary spirit, I desired to enter a province even farther away. I was sent as a pioneer to a very poor, remote, rural village. It was so challenging to be there where even basic needs were hard to meet. Seeing how the other sisters managed, I matured with the experience.
One day, I received word that my superior general wanted to transfer me to another place of ministry. Then, she said, “You will go to Hawaii mission.” My first cousin, a parish priest, asked me why I needed to go so far away to serve. I responded, “I am sent, so I have to obey.”
So, here I am, in the furthest, unexpected mission place of Hawaii.
I am happy in life. When challenges arise, I always reflect on Mother Mary through the rosary. I have a great devotion to our Blessed Mother. We were brought up in the church that way, to always pray the rosary. As I look at the life of the Blessed Mother, I reflect, “Whatever I am asked, whatever I am to do as a religious, I need to say yes as Mary did.” Problems will come and go in life. They will not remain. If I expected that in my family life, that I should get everything, or have everything easy in religious life, what is the use of becoming a religious? A religious life should be different. With Mary, I say “yes.”
Sister Philisita Jyrwa, and two other Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians, were recently assigned to St. Catherine School, Kapaa, Kauai.
