Guided by Grace: 

“I think I have felt God’s call to become a religious sister all my life,” she began.

Tabu explained about her childhood, how she’d grown up in a predominantly Muslim country in South Asia, in a large and highly devout Catholic family. Her family was very involved in their local parish and close to the community of religious sisters who served at the parish.

She explained how the family was so familiar with these local sisters that she and her siblings treated their convent as a second home, entering and exiting without ringing the bell, spending time accompanying the sisters in their work among the parishioners and the local poor, and in their prayer.

Tabu’s childhood memories were full of the cheerful, soft voices of the sisters; the melodic sounds of their prayers; the way they exuded peace, generosity, and faith; the way their presence shaped her family life, helping her and her siblings learn the importance of service to the poor, courage, gentleness, strength, and perseverance in trial.

Following the example of these sisters, she regularly tutored the children of the more impoverished families in her community. When Tabu’s elder sister began working in youth ministry, Tabu, a teenager, shadowed her, teaching catechism and working with the local youth in social justice and religious education. She felt most at home and alive in this context — serving, giving, immersing herself in caring for others.

Her own siblings had all settled into different jobs and vocations, some getting married and starting families. Tabu had finished her education and taken various jobs, several that took her overseas. But she had felt restless, unsettled.

When she brought these feelings to God, in prayer and reflection, she felt a yearning in her heart for the peace of community life that she’d witnessed as a young child among the sisters at her parish – a total commitment of her life to God and a group of other women among whom she could serve and rely on.

Finding a Home With the Sisters: 2 years Later

Tabu sat at a table surrounded by women who were forty to fifty years her senior. She was gently helping Sr. Diane, the 84-year-old woman to her left, cut her pork chop into bites. To her right, Sr. Judith, a 90-year-old, was humming to herself and staring into the distance. It was a seemingly mundane moment — but Tabu was aware of feeling supremely peaceful and happy.

That morning, she had woken up in her room, gone down to say morning prayers with the younger and more active sisters, eaten breakfast, and then had spent the rest of the morning on the Memory Care floor, where she was now assigned.

When she was first assigned to work with the elderly sisters at the convent, she felt a little awkward and nervous among them, not knowing how to interact with them or help with their needs.

But quickly the elderly sisters had grown fond of her, with her warm smile and playful manner, and she in turn had come to love them and see who they were: powerful women of faith with enormous histories of self-sacrifice and service behind them.

“I think the Holy Spirit is teaching me how to love them,” Tabu told Sister Marcella Ann.

There was Sister Angela, who had been a school principal and had championed racial integration in the local school system. There was Sister Margaret, who had been a leading social worker among inner city impoverished families in the 70s, speaking out against drug policy and the failures of social welfare. Now these women were elderly, in need of intense caregiving, but their forceful personalities and compassion shone through.

They welcomed her into their lives, and she came to know their particular needs – she helped Sister Angela take her medicine each morning, and in the afternoons pushed various sisters’ wheelchairs around the garden. In the evenings she watched Jeopardy with Sister Margaret, who knew every answer. She moved quietly and lovingly among the sisters, assisting them in everyday tasks.

In her spare time, at the vocation director’s instruction, Tabu read books about the history of the sisters and their spirituality. She learned about how the Sisters, since their founding, had been at the forefront of the movement to connect social concerns and the Catholic faith. This resonated deeply with Tabu; since her youth she had known that loving God meant serving one’s neighbor.

Here among the sisters, incredible lives of self-sacrifice were the norm; the sisters challenged one another to become better people, and they supported one another through the various hardships that came with giving one’s life away for the sake of serving others. The more time Tabu spent among them, the more she wanted to become part of the community.

Dancing With Joy

The day Tabu returned to the Sisters’ convent in the United States, she walked into the cafeteria to a storm of applause. The sisters gathered to welcome her back warmly.

“Tabu, how we missed you!”

“We have prayed for you every day.”

Tabu was overcome with happiness to be home. “I feel so loved by this community,” she told Sister Marcella Ann.

Tabu jumped back into her daily rhythms and responsibilities with enthusiasm. She came up with new activities for the elderly sisters, and even began introducing them to her South Asian culture, including through cooking. To the wonder of the senior leadership of the congregation, the elderly sisters – mostly of Irish, German, or Italian descent — loved the South Asian flavors and the smells that would waft through the hallways when it was Tabu’s turn to cook.

One afternoon, in a burst of energy and creativity, Tabu decided the elderly sisters could use a change of pace. She gathered them out in the courtyard of the Convent, wheeling them out one by one. Then, she pulled out a boom box and began playing music — first old-timey show tunes that the sisters would recognize, and then she began playing South Asian music, some of her favorites.

“We’re going to have a dance party!” Tabu exclaimed, laughing.

The elderly sisters, taken aback at first, couldn’t help but smile when Tabu began dancing among them, moving her arms gracefully in the style of her culture. Then a few of them began to join her, waving their arms, and then several sisters even got out of their wheelchairs to move about to the rhythm of the music.

Soon, it was a full-on event. Seeing the commotion, the food service coordinator organized ice cream to be brought out. Sister Madeline, from her office on the first floor, heard the music and laughter and came to investigate. She joined Sister Marcella Ann in watching the scene from the corner of the courtyard.

“How they missed her when she was gone!” said Sister Marcella Ann. “Her joy is infectious. They have captured her heart, and she has captured theirs.”

Faith Amid Uncertainty

After evening prayers, Tabu lingered in chapel at the Sisters’ convent back in the United States. Her heart was full of mixed emotions, thoughts buzzing through her mind, and she needed to bring them to God.

It had now been several months since she had returned to the United States from her year-long stay with the other Sisters congregation in Canada. She had been overjoyed to return home to the Sisters here, and the community had been thrilled to welcome her back. She’d resumed her former duties among the elderly sisters eagerly, as well as her spiritual formation and preparation to permanently join the community.

But there were heavy things weighing on her as well. In the year away, she had grown close to the sisters in Canada, particularly the elderly sisters she’d cared for there. She asked God why she had to go through the pain of learning to love a new community only to leave them again.

In addition, upon returning here, she saw there were changes among the elderly sisters — some passed away, some whose health had deteriorated. Her rhythms of care among them had faded and needed to be re-learned and reestablished. The year away, while blessed in many ways, was a disruption.

And, weighing on her most of all: just this morning, she had met with Graciela and Sisters Marcella Ann and Madeline about her immigration case. Graciela, with tears in her eyes herself, had broken very hard news to Tabu. The U.S. government had changed its policies and were now only processing applications for permanent residency with a filing date before September 2018. Tabu’s had been filed after that, so hers was indefinitely on hold — and her R-1 visa status of 2.5 years might run out again before the government could process her permanent resident application.

It was possible she would have to leave the country — for a third time. After the call, the sisters sat with Tabu and helped her process the news.

“I have never felt like an outsider here in the United States, here among you all…but this immigration process is making me feel like one,” she told Sister Marcella Ann. “It’s like people in the government assume I am coming here for the sake of immigrating alone. I wish they could understand that I’m not coming merely to immigrate – I am coming for a vocation.”

For the next few years, until policies changed, Tabu would be living in a cloud of uncertainty. But here, in the chapel, she remembered how God had been with her every step of the way — in bringing her here to the Sisters, guiding her in her time in South Asia and in Canada, and animating her joyful work and study in the present.

“God will guide,” She whispered to herself.

She had said “yes” to what she felt was God’s call to join this community and live her life in service to others. She could feel how her faith had been strengthened, crystallized, through these years of trial.

If God was truly calling, there would be a way.