Sacred Hearts sister taught littlest ones how to love God
Sacred Hearts Sister Joseph Mary Cefra, whose love of teaching gave her many years in Oahu elementary school classrooms, as well as missions to Japan and the Philippines, died Dec. 20 at Queen’s Medical Center surrounded by members of her community. She was 89 and a religious sister for 59 years. Her warm spirit will be missed.
For most of her religious life, Sister Joseph Mary was busy as a classroom teacher, tutor and as a missionary to Japan and the Philippines. Her first assignments were at Sacred Hearts Academy, Sacred Hearts Convent and St. Patrick School in Kaimuki, teaching the littlest ones how to love God and how to read and write. She was very attentive to her students and had a marvelous memory for the names of those she taught.
In 1989, Sister Joseph Mary answered the call to be a missionary to Japan where for seven years she attended to the needs of the children, her neighbors and the people with whom she worked, especially in Tsukuba and Tomobe. She held the needs of the people in her heart bringing to prayer their birthdays, anniversaries, and special needs. Again, she had an extraordinary memory for these things. She then spent four years in the congregational formation house in the Philippines. She returned to Hawaii in 2000 and taught at St. Ann Parish and School in Kaneohe and tutored at St. Patrick School until she retired in 2022.
In a 2016 Hawaii Catholic Herald interview, Sister Joseph Mary said that, though Catholic, her family were not regular churchgoers. “It was only before my brother left for the war that he asked me to go to church and I began attending daily Mass,” she said.
Growing up, “we didn’t have much money,” she said. Her father worked in a coconut-button making factory in Waialae.
“But we were well-fed and clothed,” she said, “and had a lot of love.”
She said her call to religious life came while she was sitting reading under a kukui tree in Palolo. She heard a voice, which asked her, “Why don’t you be a sister?”
“I didn’t even know what a religious sister was then,” she recalled. “God just chose me.”
Her father wasn’t delighted with her decision, but her mother told her, “If that is what you want, go ahead. But don’t tell your other sister; one in the convent is enough.”
“I never imagined that I would be missioned to Japan, India and the Philippines,” she said. “I, who never even went around the island of Oahu until right before I entered the convent.”
“I love teaching,” she said. “And, while I still have my head and still can walk, I will continue to cater to the children, especially those with special needs. The work that I do is not for me, it is for them.”
“Every day when I make my adoration, I pray for the world that God will protect his people from harm. I just pray from my heart.”
“I really enjoy these periods of prayer that continue to connect me with the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the deep quiet that first drew me to prayer of adoration.”
Alberta Hayano Cefra was born on Nov. 25, 1933, the fifth of eight children of Urbano Cefra and Sadame Lilian Ueno. She attended Palolo Elementary School and graduated from Kaimuki High School in 1951. She entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts on Aug. 5, 1960, taking the religious name of Sister Joseph Mary. She made her first profession on Feb. 2, 1963, at Sacred Hearts Convent, Nuuanu.
Sister Joseph Mary loved embroidery and needlepoint and would frame her creations and give them as gifts.
An intrepid walker, she climbed Mount Fuji twice and, in Honolulu, walked and caught the bus wherever she went.
She is survived by her sister Rose Cefra, niece Annette Brewer and nephew Jonathan Urakawa and several others nieces and nephews.
Sister Joseph Mary’s funeral was scheduled for Jan. 19 at St. Patrick Church, with burial following at Hawaiian Memorial Park.
