Benedicta, my mother was a very pious person, who went to daily mass even when there was a storm or flood. She sometimes took me along with her. She was a nurse , who often attended to poor sick people. She knew when to send complicated cases to the hospital. It was only when her friend from U.S.A. visited her that we learned that my mother was valedictorian in nursing in San Juan De Dios, Hospital. At 6p.m. all of us had to be home and pray the rosary, go to confession every Thursday before first Friday so that we could receive communion. I had a hard time convincing my father to go to confession on Thursday before first Friday and finally succeeded only when he had a mild stroke.
I read the book of Thomas Merton, of Therese of Avila and the story of St. Therese of the Child of Jesus. I was thinking of entering the Carmelite order . I was in 2nd year pre-med when I told my father and mother that I would enter the Carmelite order. My brothers told me I ought to have my head examined.
Dr. Frederick Feiser, a German Jew was able to escape Hitler . He was a medical doctor and scientist. Dr. Feiser and my father , a technologist in x-ray and a medical representative, started our Derma clinic in Bambang, Sta. Cruz in 1950, and then another one in Calvio Bldg. in Escolta.
After I finished medicine, my father took along my mother and me and joined a tour group to the Holy Land, Europe, Middle East and U.S.A. , so I would forget my religious vocation. Little did my father know that my vocation to the religious life was made stronger. He even told me , he would build me a clinic with a chapel beside it where I could pray. After the tour I was going to Fr. James Patrick Moran, S.J., for confession and counseling every week for one month. He said I really had a vocation to the religious life.
When I entered St. Scholastica’s convent , my father though I would be away only for a year for Bible study. He came to me after a year . That was a tearful meeting, but I did not go with him. After my first profession , he told me when I got my profession card that I should go home already because I had already my diploma. In the same year 1970 he told me I had a ticket for the U.S.A. together with him, my mother and 2 younger sisters. Of course, I did not accept it.
My father finally admitted I looked happy and put on weight because of the regular schedule in the convent. And I did not entertain any of my suitors : Filipinos, Chinese or American.
My mother , of course, although she missed me , was happy that I became a religious.
