The ashes of +
Sr. M. Teresita Arceo RGS were inurned at the Good Shepherd Columbarium on December 30 after a Mass of the Resurrection at the Good Shepherd Chapel, 1043 Aurora Blvd., Quezon City.
The Mass was presided by Fr. Dodoy OMI and attended by Good Shepherd Sisters from various communites, Sr. Teresita's family, friends, mission partners and staff.
Sr. M. Teresita passed away at the age of 86 on December 27, feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, after 60 yeas of faithful service as a Religious of the Good Shepherd. She celebrated her Diamond Jubilee on September 8, 2011, during the launching of the NCR Regional Celebrations in preparation for the 2012 Centennial.
Sr. M. Teresita has served in various capacitiies as group mother, local treasurer, provincial treasurer, local superior. She also helped in the program to help victims of Mt. Pinatubo through income generating projects such as making of statues out of volcanic ash. These products are sent and sold to various countries.
Good Shepherd sisters assigned in the different communities sent their messages of solidarity in prayer to the Good Shepherd family for the eternal repose of Sr. Teresita, also, known in the Philippine Province as Sr. Maya. Missionaries wrote of their experiences with Sr. Maya during their recent visit.
Sr. M. Cecilia Torres, thanked those who came to express sympathy and joined the congregation in thanking God for the gift that Sr. Teresita was to the Philippines.
Two nephews and a niece also gave their testimonies of the life Sr. Maya shared with them as the nephews and nieces, grandnephews and grandnieces were growing up.
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This is one of her stories when from 1983 to 1986 she was in Rome as a missionary -- part of an international community at the Good Shepherd Generalate, one of those welcoming Sisters from all over the world who would come for meetings and renewal programs, she helped in the organization of the Archives, and in the portineria, or the reception desk. The story: In the Generalate, everybody has her own task yet sisters are generous to lend a helping hand when tasks become too many. One day, when she was just new at the Generalate, the Sisters were expecting a visitor, another sister. Always prompt at her duties, she prepared the guestroom bed to make the night comfortable for the visiting sister. Another sister, wanting to do the same came in, and was getting ready to do the bed. At the Generalate, sisters speak, English, French, Spanish or Italian with various proficiency. She said she tried to grope for Italian words to tell the sister that she had finished doing it, but she could not recall a word. But pointing to the bed, and speaking in Latin she said, Consummatum est! The sister understood. Consummatum est. It is finished. The final words of Our Lord written in the Gospel of John Chapter 19:30 could very well be a fitting description to the life of Sr. Mary Teresita or Sr. Maya to the Good Shepherd Sisters. There are a number of Good Shepherd Sisters with the name Teresita and they all get their own nicknames—Tesang, Techit, Tess, Terry, Tita, Tessie… she got the name Tiririt, because Sisters said, she was petite. The Tiririt ng Ibong, Tiririt ng Maya… The 10th child of Melecio Arceo and Petronila Francisco, Sr. Mary Teresita was born on May 25, 1925 in Batangas City. St. Bridget Academy, now St. Bridget College, was at that time only 13 years old since it was founded in 1912, and it was there that she finished elementary , but because war broke, she studied at Sta. Isabel and St. Theresa’s. The proximity of the family house to St. Bridget College made her close to the Good Shepherd Sisters, yet she never thought of becoming a Good Shepherd Sister but a Carmelite. When her friend and piano teacher Sr. Mary John Eudes learned about it, she told her, no, “you will be a Religious of the Good Shepherd.” Sr. Maya in her recollections said, Sr. Mary John Eudes probably prayed well for that intention. She who was a beloved in the family, a member of As you Like it Club, had so many friends who cherished her, and who loved parties and who claimed she would remove her shoes as she climbed the stairs of their house coming back from a party, was clothed as a Religious of the Good Shepherd on September 8, 195. She made her first profession of vows on September 8, 1953 in Los Angeles and on April 24, 1957 pronounced her perpetual vows in Quezon City for the benefit of the big family from Batangas. Last September 8, 2011, as the National Capital Region had the regional celebration to prepare for the 2012 Centennial of Good Shepherd Sisters’ presence in the Philippines, Sr. Maya marked her Diamond Jubilee as a Religious of the Good Shepherd. Sixty years of faithful service to the congregation and the Church, she was missioned in various communities in the Philippines, beginning with Cebu where she as Sr. Mary Inez of the Child Jesus, she was mother to some 200 vagrants or street children who were brought in by the police. She also spent 10 years in Maryridge, Tagaytay, as music teacher, bookkeeper and assistant superior; 7 ½ years in Kaunlaran, now called Tahanan, in San Andres Bukid, and trainor of our Pangkat Kawayan in San Andres and Caritas Manila. She spent a total of 29 years in this 1043 compound when she was here at various times as Provincial Secretary, Treasurer, local superior, local treasurer and in recent years as a member of the Good Shepherd Community’s Maria Droste Infirmary. With the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, she found ways to help families and survivors by providing them livelihood projects making statues made from volcanic ash and sending them to various countries like the United States, Canada and Australia. She was known in the Good Shepherd’s Sharing Fair because of the network she built to market the products of the different income generating projects in the country. Sr. Maureen McGowan, director of Handcrafting Justice in New York, wrote upon learning of her death, “She was such a wonderful friend to the families from Mt Pinatubo. They have lost a friend, and advocate who worked tirelessly on their behalf!” Sr. Celeste Yuzon, a Filipina Missionary to Japan said,“ I believe deep in my heart, that she's now being rewarded by our merciful Shepherd God for all that she did for the Philippine Province and the people she served.” Sr. Rita Danganan, another missionary in South Korea, sent an email, “When I was there during the golden jubilee celebration of the novitiate last June, we reminisced the olden days when we used to play 'hand and foot' with Naty, Annette, and Tarcila. We lost a dear Sister and we will miss her. At the age of 86, Sr. Maya lived with zeal her religious life—still finding time to give piano lessons to novices, responding to requests for Mt. Pinatubo statues to continually help families, but she knew exactly when to hand over the responsibilities she had been handling so well in her organized way. In her article written as a reflection when John Paul II was about to be beatified, the Pope she met in Rome while she was in mission, she said, “I thank God for the gift of my vocation to join the Good Shepherd Congregation and to persevere amidst joys and difficulties; strengthened by God’s sustaining love for me. I had been assigned to different houses: Cebu, Tagaytay, Kaunlaran Center in Sta. Ana and San Andres Bukid, Rome and to all our houses in the compound of the Good Shepherd at Quezon City—Euphrasian Community, Bahay Ugnayan, St. Bridget School, Proivncialate, Good Shepherd Community. In all these places, one common thread that unites the whole congregation is the love to serve women In difficulties and the desire to help them attain fullness of life.” And so as we are gathered this afternoon, to offer this Mass to God for Sr. Mary Teresita, one of the gifts God has blessed us with during our 100 years, let the words of our Lord echo in our hearts, “It is finished, Maya.” Consummatum est.
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