Dedicated to serving and listening
Vocations
In a new series on different vocations within the Adelaide Archdiocese, Richard Evans speaks with Sr Maria Comito about her ministry in northern Adelaide as a member of the Daughters of Charity.
When Maria Comito was nine years old and growing up in Geraldton in Western Australia, her mother was driving her into town when she noticed an old man carrying a small bag and walking across some train lines.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
He was the ‘town drunk’, her mum replied, and a regular sight there.
“I just felt this desire to get out of the car and go and help him and do something for him,” she said.
Sr Maria Comito
“So, in a sense, that was my first thought of a vocation of service. It registered clearly, it tugged at my heart.”
A few years later, when Maria finished school in 1984, she wrote to the Daughters of Charity to find out a little more about them and met with a Sister in Perth at a vocations weekend.
Fast forward to today and Sr Maria, who has long been a stalwart of the Daughters of Charity, is living in Elizabeth in Adelaide’s northern suburbs.
How she arrived there is by no means conventional.
“I’d just finished reading the first book of Jimmy Barnes (the rock singer) and I wanted to check out this Elizabeth. So we drove up and I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, I feel so at home here’ because it reminded me of Liverpool in New South Wales where I had also worked and taught,” she said.
There was some opposition – it was a dangerous place she was told – when moving from her base in Dover Gardens where she had landed after many years in Port Hedland. However, Maria saw the opportunity, not the challenge.
“I thought, we’ve got to come, there’s a much greater need here,” she said.
“You’d have to drag me out kicking and screaming now. Elizabeth, it’s just beautiful. It just depends which way you look at it.”
Discernment was crucial before setting up in Elizabeth in July 2022.
“We looked at the many services that are already provided for people and we didn’t want to become like another agency. We wanted to be an emotional and spiritual support,” she said.
Initially, Sr Maria spent one day a week at Hutt St Centre, a work of the Daughters of Charity for the past 70 years, but now her focus is fully on Elizabeth with its range and depth of need.
Together with Sr Ratana Sriwarakul, Sr Maria believes the Sisters’ presence has enabled them to “see where the gaps are and listening to what people are wanting”.
“Most of my time is spent sitting and listening and the people are just so grateful that humbles me, because sometimes I feel I havenʼt really given them much,” she said.
Typically, somebody wanting to talk or ask for a hospital visit or similar might find her through the parish office and, increasingly, through word of mouth.
It is a 24/7 operation supported by daily prayer, Eucharist in the parish and ongoing reflection on the lives of the Order’s founders, St Louise de Marillac and St Vincent de Paul.
One day a month is set aside for spiritual reflection and there is a yearly eight-day retreat.
Sr Maria takes it all in her stride.
“I can honestly say that when I walk away, I don’t feel exhausted because it’s about being with that person so they don’t feel they are hidden away or disconnected from the parish and society.
“I hope my presence gives them a sense that they are somebody. In fact, I have been given the privilege of sitting on holy ground.”
Sr Maria has a degree in primary teaching and taught in Liverpool. She said this had given her the skills she uses today and the “confidence to stand up in front of people”.
But it was going to Port Hedland in 2009 that really helped her understand the charism of the Daughters of Charity.
“Even though I committed myself, there was always this feeling of, ‘why should I be here?’ And it was more about self, getting to know myself, getting to know who I am,” she said.
“You could say I had been on my L plates for a while learning, learning, learning, learning, and it continues on.”
Her advice to anyone looking to emulate her career path?
“I would say ‘go for it’ because there is nothing to lose and so much to gain and even if a novice walked away and realised that it wasn’t their calling, nothing would be lost by having a go,” she advised.
“Most important is to listen to the inner spirit which is encouraging, supportive and energising as opposed to the inner voice which discourages you.
“There’s no manual for the Religious life except the gospels, and the charism of the Daughters of Charity grounded in the motto ‘the love of Christ urges us’.”
Sr Maria’s biggest supporter is her mother who, even though she suffers from dementia, often reminds her: “you are Jesus’ feet and his hands and his ears”.
