Sister Mary Joseph – new leader of Teresa nuns

By Francis Sunil Rosario

Kolkata, March 15, 2022: Sister Mary Joseph says she had spent a sleepless and anxious night before accepting to be the new leader of the Missionaries of Charity, the world renowned Catholic religious congregation founded by Saint Mother Teresa of Kolkata

The election of the third successor of Mother Teresa took place on March 12, during the congregation’s monthlong general chapter that began in February. The apex body of the congregation will conclude the meeting on March 19, the feast day of St. Joseph.

Speaking to Matters India after the morning Mass March 15 in the congregation’s Green Park convent where the Chapter is being held, Sister Joseph said that she asked nervously “Why me?” when her name was announced to take over the congregation spread all over the world. A series of thoughts and challenges came to her mind. Foremost of them was fear.

However, she felt peace at heart, when Jesus assured her in prayer that He will be with her in all her responsibilities and mission.

For her it was “a decisive night,” her dark night of soul, to say “Yes” to God. And “I prayed, ‘Make me a channel of your peace, O Lord.” She then became the first native Indian to head the 72-year-old congregation.

Sister Joseph hails from Poyya, a small interior village near Mala in the Thrissur district of Kerala, a southern Indian state. It is located 40 km south from the district headquarters, 4 km from Mala and 241 km from the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram.

Sister Joseph was born in 1953. Her parents are no more. She has three sisters and a brother, all of them with well settled families. She says her simple and ordinary family maintained the cultural traditions and was deeply rooted in Jesus and Gospel values

Since her school days, Sister Joseph wanted to dedicate her life to God. She was deeply attracted by Jesus, his suffering for humanity and poverty. This helped to be drawn by the simplicity and spirit of poverty of the Missionaries of Charity and their wholehearted service to the poorest of the poor.

After completing her matriculation, at the age of 17, she went to the Trissur Vocation Centre and met a Missionaries of Charity nun, Sister Anand from Germany, who invited her to join her congregation. “Thus, I found my sacred ground to serve Jesus.”

The words of Jesus, “I came to serve and not to be served” further motivated her. It was easier said than to practice it in life.

She joined the congregation in1970 after attending a “come and see” program. She made her first profession in 1974. She was then sent to Melbourne in Australia, where she served the aboriginals. After a year, she was made the formation director in Melbourne for five years.

After completing her term as formation director, she was sent to Papua Guinea after completing an eight-month tertian-ship in Kolkata. She made her final profession in May 1980.

Mother Teresa recognized Sr. Joseph’s qualities. She was made a formator and later the novice mistress when she was a young nun. She was made superior of several houses and as head of some regions, both in India and overseas. These roles have equipped her with sensitivity needed to become attentive to the needs of the poor and the most deprived of society.

After tertian-ship, she continued in formation at Premdan (abode of peace) in Kolkata for six months and for three years in the congregation’s headquarters called Mother House as the novice mistress. Thereafter, she was sent to the Philippines in 1984 as novice mistress and the superior of the house until 1990.

“Through the years living the charism of MC, I had to purify my intention to serve Jesus in the poor. In reality, we have to discover the cross of Christ daily,” Sister Joseph explained.

After the fall of Communism in Russia and neighboring countries, Sister Joseph was sent to Czech Republic in Praha (Prague) in 1990. It was a challenging task for Mother Teresa to send her sisters to Eastern Europe.

The region, historically known as Bohemia, had become an Eastern Bloc Communist state following a coup in 1948. Attempts at a liberalization of the government and economy were suppressed by a Soviet-led invasion during the Prague Spring in 1968. In November 1989, the Velvet Revolution ended communist rule in the country, and on January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

This region consisted of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Czech Republic. Sister Joseph served as the congregation’s superior in Poland during 1990-2000. She was appointed the Regional Superior from 2000-2004 a post she held for four and a half years.

In 2009, when Sister Mary Prema took over as the superior general from Sister Nirmala Joshi, Sister Joseph was elected as the first councilor, a post she held until 2015.

In 2015, she was appointed the superior of the Motijheel community in Kolkata, the place where Mother Teresa began her mission among the poorest of the poor.

Sister Joseph says the new post was for her returning to the roots of the congregation’s charism, emerging out of the heart of the poorest of the poor, the most marginalized and deprived of society.

Mother Teresa, who came to India as a Loreto nun, founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 as a response to “a call within the call to belong to Jesus and serving the cause of the poor.”

Sister Joseph says the three years until 2018 was for her an opportunity to follow the footsteps of Mother Teresa.

In 2019, she was appointed the superior of the Kerala region.

Sister Joseph says her religious life helps her find meaning in the suffering and cross of Christ. Therefore, she finds any depth of suffering, tragedies, sickness and diseases an opportunity to love and embrace the cross of Christ. She finds fulfillment in living the reality of the poor, their struggles in life, the uncertainties and insecurity they face in life.

“My experience as MC is to feel so privileged to have the gift of this charism, God’s mercy to me, I have experienced and I am deeply grateful to God who gave me the Gospel charism. My life is to share the joy of giving and to put into practice charity among the poor and the most deprived.”

She quotes Saint Paul the Apostle to accept Jesus as the “corner stone” of her new mandate to serve Him, satiating His thirst in the poorest of the poor and face boldly whatever challenges in future with the strength of God.