A Missionary Call
I was born in a large family of eight – four boys and four
girls. Although my father was an aeronautic engineer he had to resign his work when
my mother became unhappy. After witnessing some air crashes during
demonstrations, and seeing close friends die from those accidents, she was
convinced that my father’s work was too dangerous. So my parents came back to
their native village where my father became a farmer and my mother a dutiful
housewife.
I am the fourth in the family with two elder brothers, one
elder sister, two younger brothers and two younger sisters. My elder sister was
a Cluny sister named Sister Marie Noël. She died suddenly in 1985 at the
age of 39. For some reason, I was my father’s pet and he would not give me
permission to join the convent. I practically had to leave home without his
consent except my mother, elder brothers and my father’s brother, who was our
parish priest at the time, persuaded him to let me go. It was only just before
my final vows that I got my father’s approval to continue my life in Cluny.
At the age of nine I was getting ready for my first Holy
Communion. My new white dress, rosary, etc. were ready, but I had no veil or
crown. I kept asking my mother about them and she just told me not to worry,
“You will have them on the real day.” When that day came, I was all ready. I
went to church very early. I saw a few women dressed in long brown habits with
black veils. There were no women religious in my parish and I had no memory of
ever having seen one, but these women were special. They provided me with a
veil, crown and decorated candle. Then I saw them moving freely in the
sanctuary decorating the altar and tabernacle with beautiful candles and vases
of flowers.
In those days, all we saw at church was the long curtain
dividing the sanctuary from the main body. The curtain was opened only for
Mass. I always wanted to enter the sanctuary and said to myself, “If these
women in those special dresses can enter the sanctuary, I will become one of
them when I grow up.” Little did I know that the seed of a religious vocation had
been sown in me. Then I forgot all about it, but my parents unknowingly
nurtured it. They were very particular about our attendance at daily Mass,
regular confession, catechism, and summer Bible classes. They also insisted
that we join the Legion of Mary and participate in other forms of service.
When I finished my primary studies, I had to walk 15 kilometers
each day and cross two rivers in order to attend another Catholic school. To my
amazement, it was a convent school and most of the teachers were Sisters.
Perhaps you have heard about Sister Alphonsa, the first woman saint of India – who
was canonized by Pope John Paul II. She had worked in my school not long before
I went there. By coincidence the school was named Alphonsa’s Girls High School.
At the convent, there were a few older sisters who had lived with Sister
Alphonsa. When we would visit them they would give us pieces of St. Alphonsa’s
clothing or other things, asking us to keep them. They told us these things
would be relics when Alphonsa was declared a saint. Laughing within, we would
take the things and say to one another that those old nuns were not correct in
their heads. Later, as we crossed the bridge between the school and the convent,
we would drop the ‘relics’ into the water and watch them float away. Little did
we know that one day we would regret not having such precious possessions in
our hands.
Most of our teachers lived very exemplary lives. After
school, they would take us to visit the terminally ill, old, infirm and
homebound. They would also ask us to bring milk, fruit, vegetables or anything
else we could share with the needy people we visited. At the same time, we
would bring things to school to auction them in class and collect money for the
mission. At home, we competed with each other to grow vegetables or raise
chickens for eggs. We designated all of it as mission property. Sometimes I even
stole vegetables from my brother’s garden to help the missions. Everyday my
mother took rice for cooking. I always begged her to give me a handful from her
portion. By the end of a week, or month, I would take ‘my rice’ to school for
the mission.
When I finished high school, the Sisters asked me to join
them but I said, “No, I am going to the missions – to Africa.” Later, at a vocation camp organized by the
diocese, I learned about the St. Joseph of Cluny Sisters. The name St. Joseph
and the photo of a tall nun in the old blue habit just attracted me. There and
then I decided to join the Clunys. That is how the little seed planted in me at
the time of my first Holy Communion grew and matured. Now here I am working in
Africa. When I do different chores in the Gambia, I think of Blessed Anne Marie
writing in her letters about going from one department to another supervising
workers. It gives me renewed energy to go on.
