(By Sr. Maryanne
Terrenal RGS)
St. Bridget School of Buhi, Camarines Sur, turned 50 on May 19, 2013. The Golden Jubilee
celebration was a festive affair, as only little Buhi can produce. (The three-
day celebration was featured in this newsletter last year).
The 2014-15
school year started just right, with a new band of about a dozen teachers
replacing the ones who had left. This new group, many of them alumni and
alumnae of this institution, joined the old group in preparing for this 51st
school year , by undergoing a series of formation sessions.
Photo: SBS-Buhi Staff, with Sr. Anallyn Esguerra, school directress, Ms. Mariel Gumba, school principal, Sr. Christina Sevilla, local leader and Sr. Gina.
For their first
guest they chose no other but the new province leader of the Good Shepherd Sisters,
Sr. Regina Kuizon. On May 7, she introduced St. Mary Euphrasia pelletier to the
newcomers. Even the old ones who had worked in St. Bridget school, and those
whose high school studies had been filled with SME and her sayings, admitted
they learned many new things about our Mother Foundress.
Sr. Gina then
went on to trace the history of the Good Shepherd congregation founded by St.
Mary Euphrasia. That she herself first and always was a sister of Our Lady of
Charity, founded by St. John Eudes, in 1641. St. John Eudes, his person and his
humility, were then made more
understably to the listeners.
St. Mary Euphrasia's
founding of the Contemplatives of the Good Shepherd was explained, and sister read
the Article One of our new Integrated Constitutions to verify her point.
Photo: From left, Sr. Maryanne Terrenal, Sr. Gina Kuizon, Sr. Anallyn Esguerra and Sr. Christina Sevilla.
Sister Gina also
spoke of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity that St. John Eudes had
founded, and that St. Mary Euphrasia joined 200 years later. Now another 200
years later the merging of the two congregations is being prepared for.
Sister Gina
updated this history by talking of the lay partnership mission. St. Mary Euphrasia trusted many lay persons at the beginning of the congregation and today, Good Shepherd Sisters continue to work closely with lay mission partners. Sr. Gina also underlined the fact that those who have not yet chosen
the married life as their state of life, are actually the best and the nearest
to our RGS dream, to take the
contemplative/apostolic vocation for their own.