St. Therese of the Child Jesus Inspires New Carmelite Nun

Purely Personal: St. Therese of the Child Jesus Inspires New Carmelite Nun Updated 10:28pm (Mla time)
Oct 30, 2004
By Josephine Darang

Inquirer News Service Editor's Note: Published on page G4 of the October 31, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

IN ONE of my columns in 1988, I wrote about St. Therese of the Child Jesus which Marissa Villalobos, a 27-year-old certified public accountant, read. She had not heard of the saint before and didn't know there was a Carmelite monastery in Laoag City, although she was a native of Solsona, Ilocos Norte.

The seed of vocation was planted after she read my column, she told me after her profession of perpetual vows last Oct. 15 at the Carmelite Chapel.

Marissa searched for a convent where she could be a Carmelite postulant, then found her "home" in the monastery in Laoag. She entered in 1995 at the age of 34 and was a postulant for nine months, a novice for two years. She made her temporary vows in 1998.

On Oct. 15, feast of Sta. Teresa de Avila, she took the name Sister Marissa Therese of the Eucharist as she professed her perpetual vows, kneeling behind the grills of the cloister before Laoag Bishop Ernesto Salgado.

When the choir sang the Litany of Saints, she prostrated herself in total surrender to Her Maker and committed to a life of sacrifice and prayer as a Carmelite nun.

Sister Marissa is the second Ilocana to enter the Carmelite Monastery in Laoag (the first was Sister Pauline Datoc in 1958) and its 11th cloistered nun. There are four extern nuns for a total of 15.

Sister Antonia said the community welcomed late vocations. Interested young women can text Sister Phoebe at 0916-7481756 or Sister Luz at 0916-2509810, call (077) 7221331 or write the prioress, Mother Mary Joseph, Carmelite Monastery, P. Gomez Street, Laoag City.

Women of Carmel

I went home to Laoag for Sister Marissa's solemn profession and found out that my childhood friends had become "Women of Carmel." They hear Mass at the monastery at 6:30 every morning and join its various projects. I speak fondly of Mildred Bustamante-Ranada, Myrna de la Cuesta-Campos, Elizabeth Lazo-Santos, Evelyn Dayoan-Gee and Evelyn Raval-Ruiz.
The other members are Tessie Tiong Ablan, Gloria Pastor, Paz de la Cuesta, Gloria Caluya and Gloria Reyes.

Having been together from kindergarten to high school at the Holy Spirit Academy, I was happy that they heard Mass every day. The grace has helped them cope with motherhood and the business of running their own enterprises. Mildred runs Ranada General Hospital with her husband, Dr. Francisco Ranada Jr., and Evelyn Gee has concocted a special pancit canton with husband Robert in their famous La Moda restaurant along Rizal Street. Ely Lazo Santos runs a beauty parlor in Fairview, Quezon City, but goes home to Laoag to oversee the Lazo Fashion School.

It was what Fr. Paulo Gamboa, OCD, would call "experiencing God's love." Sister Marissa also felt the same when she entered the monastery at age 34.

Family moments

I had to go home to Laoag after four years to experience what my friend Maripaz Godinez called "a special irreplaceable wonder that immediate family gives." I had dinner with my Grade 5 teacher Manuela Savellano and my mother Lourdes Darang in my brother Abe's restaurant. We talked about how God had been very good to our families.

At Texicano Hotel where I stayed, my brother Joe brought coffee from his house nearby and talked to me about his job as Social Studies teacher at the Ilocos Norte High School. I was surprised to find out he could recite "Mi Ultimo Adios" in Spanish.

Going to Mass again at St. William's Cathedral (this time at the Janssen Hall) brought memories of our school days at Divine Word College where Evelyn Raval-Ruiz and I were classmates. It reminded me of our English Literature teacher Elvira Albano, who died in 1997, of cancer. It was because of her I made English my major.

My aunt, Jean Darang-Rillera, a retired court stenographer, updated me on the family. On Oct. 17 before I returned to Manila, my brother Abe and his wife Rose took us (my classmates and I) to their farm in Balacad, where we had Ilocano dishes for lunch.

We bonded with their children, Christina, Jessica, Julie Ann and Elaine. It made me grateful for our blessings.

During my short stay, my classmates and I had lunch with Tessie Tiong Ablan and her husband Nonong at their Palazzo de Laoag Hotel. It was a happy time.

Congregacion is 25

The Congregacion del Santissimo Nombre del Nino Jesus celebrated its 25th anniversary last Oct. 24. Fr. Manuel Bongayan, SVD, said Mass at the Sto. Nino Chapel on Rodriguez Avenue, QC. Leading the celebration was founding chair Ben Farrales.

For the past 25 years, the congregacion has been holding the Sto. Nino fiesta exhibit and the grand procession on Roxas Boulevard from the Philtrade to the Luneta on the last Sunday of January.

Seminarian needs help

Fr. Richie Santos, a Salesian priest of Don Bosco, is asking for help for seminarian Edmon Medes, a third-year philosophy student at the Franciscans of St. Anthony Seminary. Bro. Edmon has not paid his board and lodging for five months amounting to P7,500. For the new semester, he has to pay P10,125 to Claret Formation House where he studies. Every month during the six-month 2004-2005 semester, he needs P1,800 for transportation and P1,500 for board and lodging. The six-month total is P19,800. If a benefactor is willing to donate the whole amount of P27,300, praised be Jesus Christ!

Text Father Richie at 0917-6677043 if you want to help. Bro. Edmon is a "late vocation," together with four others who were in Father Richie's Beatitudes Ministry in three public high schools in Pasay City in 1991. God bless you for your kindness.

Triduum for Ina ng Biglang Awa, Nov.5 at 5 p.m. and Nov. 6 and 7 at 4 p.m. at St Paul's Seminary in San Antonio Village Makati.

I Was Like a Person Who is Blind

"I could not use my imagination, as other people do, who can make pictures to themselves and so become recollected. Of Christ as Man I could only think: however much I read about His beauty and however often I looked at pictures of Him, I could never form any picture of Him myself. I was like a person who is blind, or in the dark: he may be talking to someone, and know that he is with him, because he is quite sure he is there - I mean, he understands and believes he is there - but he cannot see him. Thus it was with me when I thought of Our Lord."

- St. Teresa of Avila, Life, ix; Peers, I, 55

Saint Therese of Lisieux

Not as a prima donna in a pose
Before the swaying curtain when the play
Is clamorously ended, her bouquet
Loosed on the throng, - not even as a rose
Can I conceive of you. Let others, those
Whose lyric season is incessant May,
Cull similes to strew your "little way"
With hothouse verse and honeysuckle prose.

You are too real, too actual, Therese,
To live in metaphor. The girl behind
The legend, could the legend fade, would be
The girl you were, sobbing upon your knees
In lowliness and love and anguish, blind
With the beauty of a stark Gethsemane.

A Sonnet by Alfred Barrett, S.J.

The Prayer of Quiet

"Beginners in prayer, we may say, are those who draw up the water out of the well: this, as I have said, is a very laborious proceeding, for it will fatigue them to keep their senses recollected, which is a great labor because they have been accustomed to a life of distraction...Then they have to endeavor to meditate upon the life of Christ and this fatigues their minds...This is what is meant by beginning to draw up water from the well - and God grant there may be water in it.

"By using a device of windlass and buckets the gardener draws more water with less labor and is able to take some rest instead of being continually at work. It is this method, applied to the prayer called the Prayer of Quiet, that I now wish to describe...This state is a recollecting of the faculties within the soul, so that its fruition of that contentment may be of greater delight. But the faculties are not lost, nor do they sleep. The will alone is occupied, in such a way that, without knowing how, it becomes captive. It allows itself to be imprisoned by God, as one who well knows itself to be the captive of Him Whom it loves...

"Let us now go on to speak of the third water...that is, of running water proceeding from a river or a spring. The Lord is now pleased to help the gardener, so that He may almost be said to be the gardener Himself, for it is He Who does everything. This state is a sleep of the faculties, which are neither wholly lost nor yet can understand how they work."

- St. Teresa of Avila, Life, xvi; 96

The Four Degrees of Prayer

"Mental prayer which, for Saint Teresa, is the essential exercise of the spiritual life, must normally develop with it until it reaches perfection. A classification according to degree of perfection must then be possible and appears to be necessary; yet, how evaluate the perfection of prayer? On what bases establish this classification? Saint Teresa remains faithful to her definition in which she underlined friendly commerce with God as the essential element of mental prayer. It is on this quality of friendship, that is, on the quality of supernatural love and its effects on virtue and in union, that she is going to judge the perfection of prayer itself.

"In the book of her Life she gave a well known classification of the degrees of prayer, illustrated by the gracious comparison of the four ways of watering a garden:

"'It seems to me that the garden can be watered in four ways: by taking the water from a well, which costs us great labor; or by a water-wheel and buckets, when the water is drawn by a windlass (I have sometimes drawn it in this way: it is less laborious than the other and gives more water); or by a stream or a brook, which waters the ground much better, for it saturates it more thoroughly and there is less need to water it often, so that the gardener's labor is much less; or by heavy rain, when the Lord waters it with no labor of ours, a way incomparably better than any of those which have been described.

"'And now I come to my point, which is the application of these four methods of watering by which the garden is to be kept fertile, for if it has no water it will be ruined. It has seemed possible to me in this way to explain something about the four degrees of prayer to which the Lord, of His goodness, has occasionally brought my soul.'" (Life, xi; Peers, I, 65.)

- P. Marie-Eugene, OCD, from I Want to See God, Volume I

Observe How the Lord Answered for the Magdalene

"And do you think, daughters, that when you do not excuse yourselves there will be lacking someone to defend you? Observe how the Lord answered for the Magdalene both in the house of the Pharisee and when her sister accused her. He will not be as harsh with you as He was with Himself, for at the time that one of the thieves defended Him, He was on the cross. So His majesty will inspire someone to defend you; and when He doesn't, the defense won't be necessary. I have seen this, and it is true. But I wouldn't want you to be thinking about being defended, but that you rejoice in being blamed; and time will be the witness to the benefit you will see in your soul. For one begins to obtain freedom and doesn't care whether they say good or evil of him, but rather thinks of what is said as though it were another's affair. The situation is like that in which we have two persons talking together but not to us; we then don't care about answering. So it is here; with the habit that has been acquired of not responding, it doesn't seem they are speaking to us.

"This will seem impossible to those of us who are very sensitive and little mortified. In the beginning it is difficult; but I know that such freedom, self-denial, and detachment from ourselves can, with God's help, be attained."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 16:7

A Life Not Just of Nuns but of Hermits

"For the style of life we aim to follow is not just that of nuns but of hermits, and thus you detach yourselves from every creature. I see the Lord gives this favor of detachment in a special way to the one He has chosen for this life. Even though the detachment may not be entirely perfect from the beginning, it is seen that she is advancing toward it by the great contentment and happiness she finds in not having to deal again with anything of the world and by how she relishes everything about the religious life."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 13:6

The Beginner in Prayer

"A beginner must look upon himself as making a garden, wherein our Lord may take His delight, but in a soil unfruitful, and abounding in weeds. His Majesty roots up the weeds, and sets good plants in their place.

"Let us take for granted that this is already done when a soul is determined to give itself to prayer, and has begun the practice of it.

"We have then, as good gardeners, by the help of God to see that the plants grow, to water them carefully, that they may not die, but produce blossoms, which shall send forth much fragrance, refreshing to our Lord, so that He may come often for His pleasure into this garden, and delight Himself in the midst of these virtues."

- St. Teresa of Avila, Life 11:10

The Importance of Detachment

"Perhaps you will say: 'Why should I give so much importance to this detachment and be so rigorous about it, for God gives consolations to those who are not so detached?' I believe He does do this, for in His infinite wisdom He sees that this is fitting so as to draw them to give up everything for Him. I do not call 'giving up everything' entering religious life, for there can be impediments to entering religious life, and the perfect soul can be detached and humble anywhere; although this latter may involve greater trial, for being in a monastery is a big help. But believe me in one thing: if there is any vain esteem of honor or wealth (and this can be had inside monasteries as well as outside, although inside the occasions for it are more removed and the fault would be greater), you will never grow very much or come to enjoy the true fruit of prayer. And this is so even though you may have many years experience in prayer - or, better, I should say reflection because perfect prayer in the end removes these bad habits."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 12:5

Keep in Mind Whom You are Addressing

"Before prayer, endeavor to realize Whose Presence you are approaching and to Whom you are about to speak, keeping in mind Whom you are addressing.

"If our lives were a thousand times as long as they are we should never fully understand how we ought to behave towards God, before Whom the angels tremble, Who can do all He wills, and with Whom to wish is to accomplish. Ought we not, my daughters, to rejoice in these perfections of our Bridegroom, and to learn to know Him and what our lives should be?

"God bless me! When a girl is going to be married she knows who her husband is to be and what are his means and position., shall not we think about our Bridegroom before He takes us home on the wedding-day?

"Why should I be prevented from understanding Who this Man is, Who is His Father, to what country He will take me, what are the riches He promises to endow me with, and what rank He holds? May I not know how best to please Him, what are His tastes, and how to bring my mind to harmonize with His?

"To understand these truths is to practice mental prayer."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 22:5

Perseverance in Prayer

"It is essential to begin the practice of prayer with a firm resolution of persevering in it

"When we pay this attention of our thoughts - an attention which is not without profit but which brings us a rich reward - when we render this homage to God, Who has bestowed so much on us and Who continues to shower benefits upon us, it would be wrong not to give it Him entirely; not as one who gives a thing meaning to take it back again. This cannot be called 'giving.'

"Where can a wife be found who, after receiving a number of valuable jewels from her husband, will not give him in return even a ring, not so much for its value (for all she possesses is his) but as a pledge that she will be faithful to him unto death?

"Since we have resolved to devote to God this short space of time (which we should otherwise bestow on ourselves or our friends who would not thank us for it) let us yield it Him with thoughts that are free and withdrawn from all else.

"Let us fully resolve never to take it back, whatever crosses it may bring us, and in spite of all aridities."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 23:1

Prayer is the Door

"Prayer is the door to those great graces which our Lord bestowed upon me.

"If this door be shut, I do not see how He can bestow them; for even if He entered into a soul to take His delight therein, and to make that soul also delight in Him, there is no way by which He can do so; for His will is, that such a soul should be lonely and pure, with a great desire to receive His graces.

"If we put many hindrances in the way, and take no pains whatever to remove them, how can He come to us, and how can we have any desire that He should show us His great mercies?

"Above all I implore all for the love of our Lord, and for the great love with which He goeth about seeking our conversion to Himself, to beware of the occasions of sin: for once placed therein, we have no ground to rest on."

- St. Teresa of Avila, Life, 8:13, 14

Practicing Interior Mortification

"Let us go on to other things that are also quite important, although they may seem small. Everything seems to be a heavy burden, and rightly so, because it involves a war against ourselves. But once we begin to work, God does so much in the soul and grants it so many favors that all that one can do in this life seems little. (...)

"Why should we, then, delay in practicing interior mortification? For interior mortification makes everything else more meritorious and perfect, and afterward enables us to do the other things with greater ease and repose. This interior mortification is acquired, as I have said, by proceeding gradually, not giving in to our own will and appetites, even in little things, until the body is completely surrendered to the spirit.

"I repeat that the whole matter, or a great part of it, lies in losing concern about ourselves and our own satisfaction. The least that any of us who has truly begun to serve the Lord can offer Him is our own life. Since we have given the Lord our will, what do we fear? It is clear that if someone is a true religious or a true person of prayer and aims to enjoy the delights of God, he must not turn his back upon the desire to die for God and suffer martyrdom. For don't you know yet...that the life of a good religious who desires to be one of God's close friends is a long martyrdom? A long martyrdom, because in comparison with the martyrdom of those who are quickly beheaded, it can be called long; but all life is short, and the life of some extremely short. And how do we know if ours won't be so short that at the very hour or moment we determine to serve God completely it will come to an end? This is possible. In sum, there is no reason to give importance to anything that will come to an end. And who will not work hard if he thinks that each hour is the last? Well, believe me, thinking this is the safest course."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, Chapter 12

The Youth Will Sing His Love For Christ

"The child will put its love for Jesus in a kiss, a smile sent to the tabernacle, a caress for the Infant Jesus, an expression of sadness before the crucifix. The youth will sing his love for Christ and will encourage its growthh by using expressions and images that strike his imagination and his senses, while waiting until his intellect can provide strong thoughts to form a more spiritual and more nourishing prayer."

- P. Marie-Eugene, OCD, I Want to See God, Volume I, A Practical Synthesis of Carmelite Spirituality

Prayer is a Great Blessing

"How great is the good which God works in a soul when He gives it a disposition to pray in earnest, though it may not be so well prepared as it ought to be.

"If that soul perseveres in spite of sins, temptations and relapses, brought about in a thousand ways by Satan, our Lord will bring it at last - I am certain of it - to the harbor of salvation, as He has brought me myself.

"May His Majesty grant I may never go back and be lost!

"He who gives himself to prayer is in possession of a great blessing, of which many saintly men have written - I am speaking of mental prayer - glory be to God for it!

"Let him never cease from prayer who has once begun it, be his life ever so wicked; for prayer is the way to amend it, and without prayer such amendment will be much more difficult.

"As to him who has not begun to pray, I implore him by the love of our Lord not to deprive himself of so great a good."

- St. Teresa of Avila, Life 8:5,6

Serving the Lord Her Way
Sunday, October 10, 2004
by AMY MARTINEZ STARKE

Francisca Gabriel never had a boyfriend. No use for such foolishness; she wore a gold wedding band and declared, "I am married to God."

From girlhood in the British West Indies, Francisca knew that God had chosen her to be a steadfast warrior for the one true faith, and she knew the only religion God made was Roman Catholic.

"You should have been a nun," people always told her.

Francisca at one time had wanted to enter the religious life, but the community she hoped to join in 1940s New York City did not take women of her race.

Perhaps it was the color barrier that kept her from taking vows. Or perhaps her destiny was to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and visit the sick and the inmates outside the strictures of a convent: Francisca was fiercely independent and followed her own vision of what God wanted her to do.

As a young woman, Francisca cared for other people's children in the West Indies and Puerto Rico. After that short and unhappy visit to New York City, she came to Portland in the late 1940s and in 1951 joined a lay order, Third Order of St. Dominic. She took care of children and for more than 20 years worked as a nurse's aide at Oregon Health & Science University (then the University of Oregon Medical School) until 1979.

St. Andrew Matriarch

She adopted St. Andrew Catholic Church in Northeast Portland and became a mighty presence there. She considered herself its matriarch, its people her people, and no priest, parishioner or bishop was exempt from her attention.

While there, she became official and unofficial godmother to more than 250 infants, children, adult converts and sheep returning to the fold, even soliciting some of her godchildren before their births.

For years, she lived in a second-floor apartment on North Alberta within walking distance of St. Andrew, with pictures of the pope, the bishops, the church, the priests, Mary, Jesus and her godchildren. Her radio was tuned to KBVM-FM, the Catholic radio station, day and night, while she watched "Oprah," "Dr. Phil" and "Home Shopping Club."

For bazaars and auctions, she made dolls and crocheted and knitted hats, doilies, Christmas ornaments, toilet-paper and Kleenex holders, tablecloths, afghans, flowers. Sometimes relatives sent her food she missed -- breadfruit, plantains and dried fish -- from the West Indies, and for church potlucks and suppers, she made her specialty: yams with a spicy orange-flavored syrup.
"I got everything a poor woman would want. Ain't that something?" she said.

Duties Both Official, Unofficial

Godmother Francisca's official church position was sacristan. She ordered supplies, polished the silver, cleaned the linen, placed the flowers, lighted the candles for daily Mass. Although she never learned to drive, she always had a ride each week to bring Communion to the sick and homebound. She gathered items for food baskets. She made sure children had a rosary and the right clothing for that most important day: First Communion. She started a gospel choir that traveled all over Oregon singing "The Eye on the Sparrow," "Over My Head" and "Going Up Yonder."

She also assigned herself many unofficial roles. She carried holy water and holy oil and believed she had a gift for healing; if she saw a bright light, that person would be healed.

She had no qualms about asking for what her church needed. If the church needed flowers, and the neighbors had flowers, she would ring the bell. If nobody answered, she would help herself.
She kept track of parishioners, especially if she hadn't seen them recently, and phoned them, saying: "Go back to church; that's where you belong."

To those dressed casually: "No, no, no! You don't come to church like that!"

To men: "Take your hat off in God's house!"

Keeping an Eye on Clergy

She made her presence known right away to each newly assigned priest -- and God give him strength. (Even if she didn't agree with him all the time, she made sure he ate.)
"Your Mass was too short," she might reprimand him. "You rush, rush, rush right through.
That's why the church is losing so many people."

She bitterly lamented the Vatican II changes. People don't respect the church anymore, she believed. They don't genuflect right; they don't make the sign of the cross.

She would kiss the ring of new bishops, welcome them, then keep an eye on them.

Not everybody could take her style. Those who stood up to her, or invoked a higher church authority, would succeed -- sometimes.

Finally at age 90 (she claimed to be younger, and nobody dared tell her they knew her age), Francisca was ready for her homecoming.

Before her death on Sept. 18, 2004, she laid out her secular order's white habit, with veil and stockings. She provided names of pallbearers, songs, her picture. She specified that the food should be hot, and that she wanted two white limousines -- one for herself. She ordered Bishop Kenneth Steiner to officiate.

All of her orders were followed.

She even ordered blue skies, and the weather didn't dare refuse, so the white and pink balloons, when released, seemed to fly into the sky forever.

Amy Martinez Starke: 503-221-8534; amystarke@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1097236970178610.xml

How Forgetful of Her Ease

"How forgetful of her ease, how unmindful of honors and how far from seeking men's esteem should she be whose soul God thus chooses for His special dwelling-place! For if her mind is fixed on Him as it ought to be, she must needs forget herself: all her thoughts are bent on how to please Him better, and when and how she can show the love she bears Him...It will do me little good to be deeply recollected when alone, making acts of the virtues, planning and promising to do wonders in God's service, if, afterwards, when occasion offers, I do just the opposite."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 7:4, 9, 10

Relationships with Others

"What value God places on our loving and keeping peace with one another! The good Jesus places it before anythingn else."

- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection, 36:6

St. Teresa's Bookmark

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

- St. Teresa of Avila

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus

"St. Teresa of Jesus wrote four major works: her Autobiography, The Way of Perfection, The Interior Castle and The Foundations. ...

"St. Teresa was a 'pray-er.' Her account of her life is continually interrupted by long digressions on prayer. She recounts the struggles she had with recollection, with her own vanity and desires for worldly pleasures. She minimizes nothing. The picture she draws of a woman caught between her passion for the things of this world and an equal passion for God is very real, and very encouraging to her readers. After twenty years she surrendered totally to God and her life's journey is seen to be a journey into intimate union with God. The road she travelled was that of prayer."

- Sr. Mary, ODC, Introduction, excerpted from Daily Readings with St. Teresa of Avila

The Burning Faith of the Human Heart

"St. Teresa once explained herself as a woman so deeply in love that there was not a moment when she was not occupied with her beloved, be it thinking of him, speaking to him, working for him, talking or writing about him. Perhaps her greatest gift to the Church is not what she did or the particular things she wrote but simply the witness of a woman for whom God was an over-riding passion.

"And this reveals to us that God is such that he can be loved like that: that he is real, living, personal; that Jesus can become the beloved of a human heart. Is there any greater incentive to faith than contact with someone of burning faith: any greater support in darkness than the shining certitude of one who really knows him?"

- Ruth Burrows, Foreward to Daily Readings with St. Teresa of Avila

Remember Our Lord Invited 'All'

While we are awaiting the wonderful testimonies of faith, which will surely come, let us take the time to "stoke the fire," so to speak, and add the words of Saint Teresa of Avila to our new blog.

"Remember our Lord invited 'all.' He is truth itself; His word cannot be doubted. His mercy is so great that He prevents no one from coming to this fountain of life to drink of it."
- St. Teresa of Avila, The Way of Perfection 19:20