More than 300 people braved the blustery cold to attend the bi-annual Catholic Women’s League Sister’s Appreciation Dinner to honour the feminine genius of the many religious and consecrated women who work in the archdiocese.
The 36 women religious were celebrating milestones ranging from 25 to 75-year anniversaries at the Feb. 13 event and had a combined total of more than 500 years of service.
This year organizers decided to expand the focus of the dinner to include women who have chosen to consecrate their lives to God but have not entered a religious community.
“We sent invitations not just to religious sisters, but also to consecrated women as well,” CWL organizer Mary Waung told The B.C. Catholic. “There needed to be a bigger exposure that the option for consecrated life is available,” she said.
Vancouver CWL President Sherray Duran told The B.C. Catholic she intends to visit the cloistered nuns, including the Poor Clares in Mission, who were not in attendance, and thank them personally.
“We really appreciate the prayers they offer,” she said, “if more people believed in prayer our world would be a better place.”
Archbishop J. Michael Miller asked those in attendance to pray for God to bless the continued good work of the many religious orders that have a presence in the archdiocese. He also asked for prayers so that more orders will choose to open chapter houses in Vancouver.
In her speech thanking the CWL for hosting the event, Sister Mary Sabina DeMuth, OP, Archbishop Miller’s Delegate for Consecrated Life, remarked on women’s unique contribution to the Church.
“Tonight we gather as women of the Catholic Church, united by our baptismal consecration and call to holiness,” Sister DeMuth said. “Although we live out our call to holiness in unique and varied ways, we are united in being a leaven in the Church and in society.”
“Thank you to the CWL for bringing us together and letting us continue to collaborate in making an authentic feminine genius more visible within the Church and society,” said Sister DeMuth.
Milestones
Sister Agnes McGrath, SEJ
75 years
Sister Agnes spent her life as a teacher working with First Nations children and is now living at Vancouver Fair Haven care home, where she continues to live out the charism of the Sisters of the Child Jesus “of being a presence of love for the awakening and deepening of the faith.”
Mary Souter, Daughter of the Church
60 years in 2021.
Mary joined the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Holy Rosary Cathedral until it was dissolved four years after she took her vows. She became a Secular Franciscan in 1970 and joined the newly formed Daughters of the Church in 2001. Her biography says she helps to ground the community in Christ “with her unwavering trust in Divine Providence and the benevolence of God.”
Sister Veronica Tang, SIHM
55 years in 2020
Sister Veronica was born into a Buddhist family in Hong Kong. When she was 15 years old she passed a painting of the Blessed Virgin on the wall of a nearby Catholic school. She was so impressed with its beauty that she asked her father if she could transfer to the school. She was eventually baptized and decided to enter the convent at the age of 18, a choice that caused a great deal of family distress. She eventually entered with the financial help of her brother who was baptized years later. She accepted an invitation to teach in Vancouver and was instrumental in the foundation of St. Francis Xavier Montessori Pre-School Centres. She still teaches RCIA and is active in the local Cantonese Catholic community.
