Pres Around The World: Sisters Work for Justice

When Sister Judy Romero left Pres two years ago, she left the school without a daily connection to the community of the Presentation sisters. It’s easy to forget that our school is a part of a worldwide network of schools and community organizations that are dedicated to valuing human dignity and living out the gospel values.

As you probably remember from Religion 9 (…or not) the Presentation Sisters, also known as the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (PBVM), are a Roman Catholic religious order founded in Cork, Ireland by Nano Nagle in 1775. Initially, their work was to establish schools for the poor, especially for girls. Although they encountered great difficulties along the way, they successfully established schools throughout the world, many of which still exist today.

Nano Nagle said of her schools, “I can assure you that my schools are beginning to be of service to a great many parts of the world…I often think they will not bring me to heaven as I only take delight and pleasure in them.”

Today, communities of Presentation sisters operate in 23 countries. Each community has developed into autonomous groups, but they all link to the International Presentation Association (IPA), which is a network of Presentation Sisters, the Conference of Presentation Sisters of North America and the Australian Society of Presentation.

The Union of the Presentation Sisters is just one of the many congregations of the Presentation Sisters. According to the Union Sisters of the Presentation website, the Union of Presentation Sisters includes 1,300 sisters from England, India, Ireland, Latin America, New Zealand, North America, Pakistan, The Philippines, Slovakia, Thailand, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Many Pres students were able to meet these sisters when they went on the Community Involvement trip to Zambia last summer. The trip to Zambia was an opportunity to interact with sisters from different countries who nevertheless carry out the same motto we know and love. In Africa, the Presentation group stayed with three sisters from Ireland, one from India and one from Africa.

In Africa, it is very common for women to become sisters because it ensures they will have an education, a job and a home for the rest of their lives. The sisters from Ireland and India usually retire in Africa. After many years of teaching, the sisters moved to Zambia to help the children there. Sister Pamela in Livingstone works in the prison as a spiritual guide for inmates. She also visits a hospice twice a week to pray with the AIDS victims before their deaths. In both situations, she is helping African people reconnect with God at critical points in their lives. Many other sisters retire by tutoring local children and helping them with their English skills.

In a small village called Pemba, two Irish sisters work to create a better life for the small, native community. In this village, the sisters are the only white people living there and the only white people many of the natives have ever seen. Because of this, everyone recognizes the sisters. Their tireless work for the community makes them revered figures in their society. Every Sunday the sisters attend Mass at the one church in the village where the entire Mass is in the native African language.

One of the sisters, Sister Mary Lucey, has started a sustainability project for the families in Pemba. Her idea was to build a community around one central water source. These sub-communities are constructed of eight houses in a circle where the fronts of their homes are gardens of food. However, this luxury is not just given to the people. So far there are only two of these sub-communities and the occupants were hand-picked by Mary Lucey based on their actions in Pemba and their domestic situations.

Once they are picked, the people must build their homes from the ground up using a strict floor plan and the materials provided by the sisters. Sister Mary Lucey’s idea was that these small communities are able to coexist together while utilizing the water source and sharing their crops with each other. What they don’t eat or trade with a neighbor is to be sold in the Pemba market. In these villages, the sisters in Africa desire to live out the values of Nano through their work with the local community.

In the United States, there are currently communities of this specific congregation in Southern and Northern California, Texas, Arizona and Mississippi. They vow to try to bring relief to the exploited and make the values of human dignity visible, specifically the poor and powerless.

Two years ago some of the Presentation faculty went to New Orleans to help with cleaning up Hurricane Katrina, and the sisters’ effect on the faculty was profound. “The sisters in New Orleans are amazing,” said Mrs. Colvin. “They have such positivity and energy and it’s hard to stay positive all the time with this situation. They don’t just put a band aid on the problem, but they fix it and do it right. I love them!”

Recently, Sister Liz Remily from South Dakota and Sister Joanna Bruno from San Francisco made a 4,175 mile long journey by Jeep to found a health clinic for the poor in a small village called Concepción in Guatemala. The people in this village have no access to any sort of medical treatment. Sister Remily and Sister Bruno are currently living in a cabin with four rooms, no beds and a faulty wiring system. They have started planning the clinic, which will be the fourth clinic they have built in Mexico and Guatemala.

While the Presentation Sisters continue the original mission of Nano Nagle to educate the poor, they have expanded their mission to overall commitment to the poor and to justice around the world. As Ms. Russo puts it, “I think they embody everything that’s inspirational and nourishing about women of faith.”

Finding Inspiration in Africa

This summer, 12 Pres girls went to Zambia, a small, peaceful country in South-Central Africa. The first week of the service trip was spent in Livingstone with a group of six Presentation Sisters. The second, we stayed in Pemba with two sisters. While working at the schools and orphanages, I was able to learn from numerous colorful people, old and young.

In Livingstone, I met the most remarkable people the day I worked with caretakers at the Saint Francis Care Center. I went to a house in the community where they hold a clinic once a month for people the in neighborhood that are sick with diseases like AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and malaria. After I did warm-up exercises with the patients, we went to see the four patients that were bedridden. First, I saw a woman who was young and had many children running around her house. Her eyes were extremely sad and she did not speak. Just standing in her presence, I could feel death. It was the first time during trip that just seeing someone made me cry; I was so overwhelmed with compassion that I didn’t know how to deal with it. After I left her house, I met Martin, a 38-year-old man with a warm smile. When I first met him, I was not sure how sick he was because he looked relatively athletic and I could tell he was extremely tall despite the fact he was sitting down. He told me that he had four kids and was taking care of them while his wife was gone. Martin was extremely friendly and quick to make conversation. While we were talking, the caregiver told me that he could not walk because he had some sores on his legs; she asked him to show them to me and he did. Martin lifted the blanket that was covering his legs and exposed the sores on his legs.  All of a sudden, the wind was knocked out of me; I was so shocked to see such big, open wounds on a living person. Neither words nor pictures can describe the enormous, grotesque sores. I was so impressed with Martin’s uplifting and optimistic attitude despite his unbelievable circumstance.  He has made a lasting impression on my outlook on life. It was so inspiring to see someone whose positive attitude enabled him to see past his illness. The stark comparison between the sick woman and the sick man is only seen when looking at their attitudes. Because of Martin’s hopeful outlook on life, he seemed much more able to live his life to the fullest. From this I saw that attitude determines everything and a positive attitude can help bring you through the hardest times.

After the time we spent in Livingstone, the group traveled to a small, rural town called Pemba. In Pemba, we stayed with two extraordinarily inspiring Sisters: Mary Lucey and Bernadette, both retired Irish schoolteachers. They moved to Pemba 14 years ago to bring more world knowledge to the small village; the sisters were the first white people most of the town had ever seen. My favorite memory from Pemba was a talk we had with Sister Mary Lucey one night by the fire. We were all sitting around after dinner and she told us of some of her encounters while being in Africa. The stories were very interesting but the best part was at the end, when she told us, “You know, you do what you can.” After she explained her heroic efforts and the tremendous amount of work she has done in Pemba, she simply said that she tries her hardest to do what she can and in the end of the day, that pays off the most. This quote has stayed with me since the trip because it is such a good way to view our abilities here on Earth. Her insight on life has given me new hope in the endeavors I take. It doesn’t matter how much you do but the intensity and how much of yourself you give to it.

The sisters serve as inspiration to all Pres girls because of how much of their lives they have given to the people of Pemba. There are sisters just like Mary Lucey and Bernadette all over the world; the Presentation community is truly international!