A garden for flowers to grow
People
If it wasn’t for a typhoon and ensuing landslide that destroyed her family’s crops, Sr Josie Labata SJBP might still be living in a mountain village on the island of Leyte in the Philippines.
It was at this moment that Sr Josie’s father decided he could no longer rely on the land to support his family, prompting him to encourage his six children to study for their future.
Looking back on her childhood, the Payneham parish pastoral associate said the Benedictine motto of ‘Ora et labora’ (pray and work) was particularly relevant for her parents.
“My father loved working, my mother loved praying,” she told The Southern Cross after returning from the Philippines where she celebrated her 25th jubilee on May 15.
“That’s because our place is not like here; it’s a mountainous place and my father was the source of our livelihood, but we were a highway for typhoons and one time, just when the crops were ripe for harvest, a big, strong typhoon caused a landslide and covered everything he had sown.
“So, my mother said, ‘look at your plants, they are ruined’ and that’s the time he turned slowly to the Lord, and started to push us into studying, encouraging us because the land was not providing for us like it used to.”
Sr Josie said her mother had always been very devout and the religious culture in the village was “very strong”.
The family attended Mass in the village chapel but for special feasts, they would walk two hours to their parish.
On Palm Sunday young Josie, the third eldest child, had the job of carrying large coconut leaves to be blessed and it was no easy feat bringing them back up the mountain to the village.
At the Easter Vigil, the family would sleep at the church and rise at 4am for an “encounter with Jesus”.
This strong faith became even more important when Sr Josie’s father suffered a serious illness and the family prayed the rosary every morning and evening. “We asked for the grace for our father to be healed because we children were still young,” she said.
“My father lived for another 30 years – it was a miracle.”
After completing her schooling in the local village, Josie left home at the age of 18 and found work in Manila as a sales representative in the textile industry.
She stayed with her sister-in-law, who was very devoted to the Church. Sr Josie would visit the local parish when she finished work each day and became involved in a youth group and preparations for the Manila World Youth Day in 1995.
“I worked for almost three years but I never missed church, and found it a source of life,” she said.
“Sometimes, while walking on the road I saw a Sister visiting families alone. I said to the Lord, please send somebody to help her pastoral work in the parish. Though unaware of God’s silent voice, this experience led me to discover the door to religious life.”
Her contact with the Sisters of Jesus Good Shepherd, commonly known as Pastorelle, came through the parish and out of curiosity she and one of her friends took up an invitation to visit their convent. While her friend, who was the “eager one”, immediately decided it was not for her, Sr Josie said to herself ‘this is wonderful, I feel at peace, I feel comfortable’.
“From that encounter, the Sisters offered us a one-year program for those who wanted to go deeper, to search where God was leading us,” Sr Josie said.
“When I joined the group, there were 15 of us visiting on the first Sunday of the month and I said to myself, if I can finish this year without any absences, this will be a good sign that God is calling me.”
At the same time, her employer offered her a position in Taiwan, but Sr Josie’s heart was “already drawn” to the Lord.
When World Youth Day came to Manila, the theme song, Tell the World of His Love, struck a chord with her.
“This song gave me a longing, something in my heart kept growing,” she said.
But first, she needed the blessing of her parents to confirm that God was really calling her.
Expecting her father to be the difficult one, when she returned home he told her she was free to choose whatever she wanted to do in her life, and that if it was too hard she could always come home.
Her mother’s only contact with religious women had been with contemplative nuns who lived in a cloistered community in the village, so she feared she might not see her daughter again if she joined the Pastorelle Sisters.
Sr Josie promised she would come home and, true to her word, after entering the convent at the age of 25 she visited her parents during the holiday break in her formation year and for feast days after her profession.
Her ministries in Manila included assisting liturgy, formation of children, youth and sacramental preparation in the parish.
Sr Josie also spent four years as vocation animator in Philippines/Australia/ Saipan Province, followed by six years as youth coordinator in a diocese. She was one of the pioneer sisters who opened the Pastorelle community to support a large and busy Cathedral in Mindanao.
In 2019 Sr Josie arrived in Australia and after 10 months in Melbourne, she joined the Payneham community where the Sisters have had a presence since 1983. Arriving in early 2020, just one week before churches closed due to Covid, it took her a little while to get used to the Australian culture, but she said being a religious Sister meant people opened up to her.
“People are very grateful that we (the Sisters) are here. It’s a lovely faith-filled community. Parishioners are very generous in sharing what they have – their talents and their time. They pray for us and even bring us food – whatever they have in their garden – fruit, vegetables, eggs.”
Her parents passed away in 2012 and 2015 and three of her siblings live in Canada. When she returned to the Philippines to celebrate her jubilee she visited every place she has served as well as her own village – six places in six weeks.
Sr Josie is optimistic about the future of the Church.
“The future is today, if I live today whom I am called to be, then the future will come,” she said.
“When I see babies, I call them baby priest or baby Sister. If we can create a religious culture, they will remember and might consider to become a priest and religious in the future.
“We are lucky because we have had priests, Sisters, and Brothers in our time, but what about them? Our responsibility is to prepare their hearts.”
As for her own vocation, Sr Josie said she was “very blessed and grateful for all the marvellous things the Lord has done in her life”.
“When we appreciate our vocation, what God has given us, we also learn to appreciate others,” she said.
“I thought I was just a flower growing in the garden, but the Lord wants me to be a garden wherein flowers can grow; this is what I love, these little children will come and realise that we have a loving God who looks after us.”
“It is the Lord who allowed everything, good and bad, in my life. For me, there is no wrong because everything has its own reason.
“If that landslide did not happen, I might still be there in my village, but the Lord had a greater plan for me.”
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