A late vocation
“Sister, this is the call of God that I have been waiting for. I had a sense of having a call and not knowing what it was.” This was Mrs Theresa Nath’s reaction, at the age of 54 years, to a request to leave home in Fiji’s capital, Suva, to become a companion for Mother Canisius.
Mother Canisius had come from New Zealand to Fiji ten years previously in 1977 to live a life of prayer as a hermit. She lived at the Ashram, a rural retreat centre about 150 miles from Suva. She was growing old and weak and needed a companion.
On meeting Theresa, Mother Canisius asked her all sorts of questions. She wanted to test Theresa’s commitment. Would she remain with her on her good days and her bad days? “Luckily, I passed her examination,” said Theresa, smiling.
Unexpected adversity
Theresa was born in Suva in June 1933. Her father owned a small bus service. She attended a Catholic primary school until year three, when the schools in Fiji closed during World War II to be used as billets for soldiers.
After the war, Theresa boarded at a Catholic primary school where she was baptised and received First Communion. When she finished year eight, her father brought her home to the rudimentary dwelling he had built on land he had bought.
In 1952, Theresa married a Catholic convert in an arranged marriage. They were both 19 years old and lived with her parents. In 1957, she began working in a cigarette factory. By 1960, the couple had five daughters.
Theresa’s husband went to England in 1962. The plan was that he would stay with her relatives, find work and bring the family over. For three months, he sent money home. Then he disappeared, and all communication with Theresa ceased.
Caring for her children
When Theresa’s adopted brother married, the dwelling became too small for the extended family. So, Theresa bought a small shack and became a tenant at will in an informal settlement. Her eldest two daughters were married by then.
Sometime later, Rup Chand, a seaman, asked her to look after his mother and his two very small children, whose mother had deserted them. He promised to send money regularly to her while he was at sea. Theresa agreed, partly because she worried about her three adolescent daughters - Rup was honest and treated her daughters with respect and care. She warned him, however, never to criticise her Church or try to stop her from going to Mass on Sundays.
Like everyone, they had their ups and downs. If she was annoyed with him, she would go to a film after Mass on a Sunday morning. Worried about her, he would guess where she was and wait for her to come out (Hindi films are quite long) and accompany her home.
When her father later moved house, he signed over his land to Theresa. The Housing Authority, to whom she mortgaged the land, built a standard house there. She paid a large deposit and a weekly sum. She sold food parcels and did some sowing to make extra money. Rup contributed too. Her three younger daughters married and emigrated to North America. Theresa had now fulfilled her family responsibilities and was open to another call.
Caring for mother Canisius
By 1997, Mother Canisius was becoming weaker. When she was in the hospital for surgery, Theresa stayed with her. “I would sleep on the floor beside her bed. Two years later, she was admitted again, and I stayed with her day and night.”
Theresa’s daughter Angeline, who was awaiting a US permanent residence permit, used to bring their food to the hospital on the 8.00 am bus, stay all day, and return to the Ashram on the evening bus to wash their clothes. After two months, Mother Canisius died in Theresa’s arms.
Angeline wondered why her permit was taking so long. A day or two after Mother Canisius’s burial, she received a phone call from the American Embassy. The message was, “Why haven’t you collected your residence permit? It has been here for the last three months!”
Theresa is now 89 years old and has lived for almost 35 years at the Ashram. There she has a regular program of prayer, which includes reciting the Divine Office morning and evening and attending Mass, when available. She used to help cook for groups that came there.
Caring for the people
Theresa has been an angel of mercy to many people around the Ashram. She bought the materials and had a small house built for a young mother with small children who had been thrown out by her mother-in-law. She paid many children’s school fees. She bought hampers for poor families in the settlement before Christmas and Easter each year.
She helped two part-time Ashram cooks when there was no priest in residence. She paid one from her own pocket and had wiring and electricity installed in the other’s house. She paid the seminary fees of a young man in India and was thrilled to attend his ordination.
Like Ruth with Naomi
Her daughter Annie recalls visiting the Ashram once and being woken by her mother and told to shower and be in the church by 7.00 am. As she was walking up the hill, she heard her mother singing a hymn by herself inside the church. She stood outside and cried. Her mother seemed to glow with happiness.
When Theresa heard God’s call to become Mother Canisius’s companion, she gave her house and land to Rup Chand and his son. The then Archbishop gave her permission in writing to live as long as she wished at the Ashram and to be buried there beside Mother Canisius. She would be a companion to her in life and death.
Listen to "Theresa - companion for a hermit"
Related links
- Read more from The Far East - September/October 2022
