By Lissy Maruthanakuzhy
New Delhi, March 13, 2026: About twenty years ago, on a visit to our sisters in the Philippines, I met Sister Fidelis Singh, fair, small in stature, always with a smiling face.
I had heard about her that she was a part of the Indian province in the beginning stages of our life in India. She was sent from the Philippines immediately after her first vows.
She spent 15 years in India living in communities of Mumbai (then Bombay), Kolkata (Calcutta) and Goa where she engaged in disseminating Gospel message through book centres and family visits until 1972 when she returned to the Philippines.
Meeting her in the Philippines was a joy to us and she was delighted to spend time with us taking us for an outing and shopping during our free time. She impressed me with her love and simplicity.
She got another opportunity to be in India in 2001, on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the province.
The news of her passing away on February 6 at the age of 92 brought back many memories.
However, it was through her testimony published at her death we learned more about her and her cumbersome journey to the daughters of St Paul. She called her religious vocation as “My Parents’ Greatest Gift.”
She wrote: If I were not born in the Philippines, I guess I might not have become a nun. Environment played a very important role in our life. We were surrounded by Catholics, our friends were Catholics, and so we grew up just like any of them.
My parents, both born in Hindu families, were from India. My father worked for a certain company which opened a branch in the Philippines. Thus, after marriage, he was happy to bring my mother also to the Philippines and they settled in Calamba. It was like an adventure for the newly-wed couple and they found life pleasant here in Philippines.
Among my parents’ acquaintances was a Spanish couple who encouraged them to be baptized. But my parents refused. However, they allowed myself and my siblings to be baptised.
They never forced us to follow their religion. Instead, they allowed us to assist at Holy Mass, attend catechism classes and join the church activities, just like other Catholic children in our town. And we enjoyed it.
They were happy too. They bought us new clothes and shoes for our first communion; we celebrated Christmas and Easter in our family although they did not go to church.
We never experienced any opposition or criticism from them. They were happy to see us enjoying with other children. We brothers and sisters recited the rosary at home, and my parents would also be around.
Although my parents had told us about the Hindu culture, we were more inclined to be Catholics and Filipinos. The only thing my father told us girls was that we were not to marry Filipino boys. Then, when I was thirteen, he started to tell me about a “match” that he and another Hindu father were planning for me and the latter’s son. But I took it for granted.
I was young then and had no interest yet for marriage. I did not know that he was serious about it. However, that match did not materialize, because I entered the convent. And my father was very sorry for that.
Ideas about nuns were not strange to me. I saw nuns in my town and, of course, the Daughters of St. Paul bringing books to the families. I was attracted to their work because they were bringing the Bible.
Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible that time, but the Sisters were distributing them. So, I said to myself, maybe I could do that work for God as an act of gratitude for the gift of faith I received.
In 1955 after my graduation from High School, I decided to ask permission to enter the convent. It was not only difficult, but was the beginning of a big trouble. Both my parents were violently against it. My father told me that it could be a great humiliation for him if I did not marry. Hindu fathers want to give all their daughters away in marriage. If a daughter does not marry, she will be suspected to have some physical defect or sickness, or worse, that her father must be too poor to afford the dowry. This would be a great humiliation for the family!
My mother got very mad at me, but I had my own way. We stopped talking about it for some time. When I sensed that they had forgotten about it, I escaped. I asked to go to Manila to buy something but I went straight to the convent of Daughters of St. Paul in Pasay City.
Both of my parents refused to forgive me. My mother did not speak to me for ten years! After my religious profession, I went home to visit them and my brothers and sisters. My parents refused to let me in. My brothers and sisters felt sad about our parents’ reaction, but they were happy and supportive of me.
I thank God that we had received such an abundant faith to be able to understand what it is to love God and be at his service. My brother became a seminarian. Of course, he was a boy so my father did not have to worry so much about his marriage as in the case of his daughters. They did not oppose his vocation although my brother did not persevere.
Then my father returned to India with the intention of bringing over to the Philippines his family at a later date. But he was not successful; he became sick in India.
Fortunately, that time, I was also serving in India. So, I took care of him. Eventually he passed away there. But before his death, he was baptized by a Franciscan priest.
What a grace! As for my mother, she died in the Philippines many years after my father, and she too was baptized before she died!
I am indeed grateful to God for His gracious goodness. I believe my parents are now enjoying their eternal reward in the presence of our heavenly Father. And I thank God for my parents, for their love and care, and above all, for their tolerance in allowing us to be baptized and brought up in the Catholic faith.
She was called jokingly by her sisters, ” Mother Teresa” because she looked Indian and also “little saint.” Her sisters said, she never uttered harsh words to anyone.
She had similarities with Mother Teresa especially in her yearning for holiness, love for the poor, and most needy.