Honolulu-born missionary was a ‘reflection of God’s tenderness’
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Sister Grace Marie Tom, a soft-spoken Sacred Hearts Academy graduate with a joyful spirit of adventure who served in missions in Asia for 30 years, died Nov. 9 at age 87 at Straub Medical Center in Honolulu. She was a religious of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary for 67 years.
Seven years ago, on her 60th anniversary of religious life, Sister Grace Marie described her life as a chain of “gratias infinitas” — endless thanks.
She thanked God “for a lifetime of good physical health and a joyful and grace-filled vocation in the Sacred Hearts family” as she strove daily “to contemplate, live and announce to the world God’s redeeming love and thus give honor and glory to the Sacred Hearts.”
Sacred Hearts Sister Katherine-Francis Miller remembers “Gracie” as a “lovely Chinese sister, who had a beautiful soprano voice and who was willing to do anything that was asked of her.”
“Although she was soft-spoken and shy, there was a spirit of adventure that lay inside of her that made her say ‘yes’ or ‘I can help with that’ when any task was asked of her,” Sister Katherine Francis said, whether that meant being assigned to the Sacred Hearts Academy library or to the missions in India. “She was always ready and willing.”
Sister Aurora Laguarda, a general councilor of the Sacred Hearts Congregation who spent many years in India with Sister Grace Marie, described her colleague as “a missionary life to the end.”
“Her heart was in Asia, as it was in Japan, and everywhere she has been,” she said.
“I will always remember her for her humility, her wisdom, her witness, her prayer and her dedication to others,” Sister Aurora said. “Her first thought at the beginning of each day was for the Lord, and her second for the sisters of the community and the poor.”
“Her austere and simple lifestyle speaks to me of a sister who is inhabited by God and who transmits him through every pore of her skin,” she said. “No matter what she was doing, she was a reflection of God’s tenderness and love.”
“I will always remember her as the ‘whisper of God,’” Sister Aurora said.
Sister Grace Marie was born in Honolulu on June 1, 1934, the first of five children of Grace and K.C. Tom. Her parents named her June after her birth month.
Sister Grace Tom reflected on her life in a 2017 interview in the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
“Being brought up in a non-Catholic household, I was not exposed to the religious or missionary life. My parents, however, believed that we would get a better education in a private school.” They sent her to St. Patrick School in Kaimuki.
In the sixth grade, preparing for baptism, she said she decided on a name “that might sound nice if I were to become a religious. But I really wasn’t seriously entertaining the thought.”
That was until her senior year when a Sacred Hearts sister brought up the subject.
“After talking to her, I started to go to Mass every day before school started,” she said. She entered the convent in 1952 after she graduated.
Her formative years were spent at Sacred Hearts Convent in lush Nuuanu with a variety of assignments, among them community coordinator, provincial secretary and classroom teacher.
She earned a master’s in library studies and was assigned to work in the Sacred Hearts Academy library.
In the 1960s, her congregation began opening missions in Indonesia, India, the Philippines and Japan. In 1987, Sister Grace Marie volunteered for Japan. She served there until 1996 when the Japan mission closed. She then asked to go to India.
“I felt I could still be of help to the Sacred Hearts presence there. I knew the sisters were assisting the brothers in their clinic for leprosy patients in Bhubaneswar,” she recalled.
“The sisters also had a hostel that they had started for girls without leprosy. The goal here was to give them an education so that they would be empowered by learning skills to be able to stand on their own, to do something better with their lives.”
She described her work as “simply to be among the people, witnessing to my life as a Christian, as a religious, teaching English, carrying on household responsibilities.”
Sister Grace Marie Tom returned from the missions and since 2017 had been a member of the Sacred Hearts community of St. Anthony Retreat Center in Kalihi Valley.
She is survived by her sister Lorraine Lee and brothers Clarence and Richard.
Her funeral was Nov. 22 at Sacred Hearts Academy chapel. She is buried at Hawaiian Memorial Park in Kaneohe.
