Red roses decorate a photo of Carmelite Sister Marie Tang of the Child Jesus at her funeral, July 5, at Carmel of the Holy Trinity convent on the grounds of St. Stephen Diocesan Center. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
Quiet, joyful Carmelite was one of Hawaii’s original seven
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
“A time to mourn …”
Sister Elizabeth DeJesus, reading from the famous passage from Ecclesiastes at the funeral Mass of fellow Carmelite Sister Marie Tang, followed that line with an emotional pause, before continuing, “… and a time to dance.”
Remembered for her quiet unselfconscious joy, Sister Marie Tang of the Child Jesus died June 30 at her Carmelite convent on the grounds of St. Stephen Diocesan Center. She was 94 and a Carmelite for more than 70 years.
About 50 people took a pause from their week the morning of July 5 to go to the Carmelite monastery to bid goodbye to the next to the last of seven Chinese Carmelite nuns who came to Hawaii nearly 45 years ago.
Bishop Larry Silva celebrated the funeral Mass as the body of Sister Marie lay without a casket on a bed of roses in the sisters’ chapel alcove and visitors crowded into the adjoining public chapel and lanai. The bishop was joined in the sanctuary by four priests and three deacons.
The bishop, in his homily, said Sister Marie reminded him of the expression “Daddy’s little girl.”
She was special and favored as “Abba’s little daughter,” he said.
“He chose her for a more hidden kind of life, hidden from the public spotlight,” Bishop Silva said.
“Sister Marie was chosen by God to take on her shoulders the yoke of Jesus Christ” in the physical form of the Carmelite’s full monastic scapular.
For the sake of others, she prayed prayers of thanksgiving, repentance and petition, the bishop said.
“She took up the burdens of others with a lowly and gentle heart,” he said.
“She always stayed close to her Abba, her heavenly Father,” he said. “She adored her Abba and came to know him infinitely.”
Sister Agnella Iu, the last of the original seven Chinese Carmelites, described the late Sister Marie in an email to the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
Smallest in the world
“Small in stature, Sister Marie was often teased by our beloved Msgr. Daniel Dever, who would say, ‘Sister Marie is the smallest Carmelite in the world!’” Sister Agnella said. “But she had a magnanimous heart.”
Sister Marie motivated her community to develop the convent grounds. With the help of the late groundskeeper Robert Murakami, the sisters planted bananas, papayas, oranges, limes, tangerines, starfruit, lychee, dragon eyes, ginger, onions, winter melon and nut trees.
She and Sister Mary Angel Wong took care of the fish raised in the convent pools and worked together in the kitchen.
“She was a good and very caring nurse, especially to the late Mother Mary Agnes Tse,” Sister Agnella said.
In a Carmelite monastery, an “angel” is a sister who attends to a novice’s external needs, helps her learn the Divine Office, and observes how she is taking the Carmelite life. Never officially an “angel,” Sister Marie was like a second angel, always reminding, consoling, protecting and providing for the novices.
Sister Marie once used the operation of their honey comb machine to teach a novice a spiritual lesson. While it takes the strength of two sisters to get the machine to rotate, soon momentum takes over and the mechanism is spinning on its own.
“When we are willing to take effort and surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit,” she said, “he will take the lead and our actions will be moved by him.”
Sister Marie also shared with her sisters a bit of wisdom given her by her spiritual director on the day she entered Hong Kong Carmel: “God may not give you big crosses in Carmel, but certainly he will send you small crosses. Say yes to them.”
“We could see,” said Sister Agnella, “she always kept this instruction in her mind and heart.”
Darlene Tvrdy, group leader of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites Hawaii, who with her husband Joseph would visit Sister Marie when she lived for a few years in a care home in Kaneohe, recalled how she “smiled and held her Chinese breviary close to her.”
“Her smile was even bigger when she returned home to the monastery and was able to live the rest of her life with her fellow sisters, especially Sister Agnella,” Tvrdy said.
Steve and Deni Smith, friends of the Carmelites who have attended Mass at the monastery for 16 years, also remembered Sister Marie as “always smiling, a bit shy, but so pleased to take our hand as we greeted her after Mass.”
“Sister Marie was very devoted to her Carmelite Sisters,” the couple said by email, to the point where she chose to remain with Sister Teresita at the Kaneohe care home until Sister Teresita died, even though she had become healthy enough to return to her monastery.
Sister Marie Tang of the Child Jesus was born in Shan Tao, China, on Jan. 17, 1924, the eldest daughter of Yi-lue Tang and Gao-xiji Tang. She had one older brother, two younger brothers and six younger sisters. She entered Carmel of Hong Kong on May 25, 1947, Pentecost Sunday and made her vows on Dec. 8, 1958.
She was one of the seven original members of Hawaii’s Monastery of the Holy Trinity, who arrived in the Islands from Hong Kong on Oct. 25, 1973, at the invitation of Bishop John J. Scanlan.
Sister Marie’s body was cremated soon after her funeral Mass. Her urn will remain in the nuns’ side of Carmelite monastery chapel with those of the sisters who preceded her in death.
