Pax Christi Sisters celebrate 50 years

Photos by Ervey Martinez | STC
 

 

The Pax Christi Sisters celebrated the 50th Anniversary of their foundation at the Pax Christi Liturgical Retreat Center on July 19. Bishop Michael Mulvey presided over the Mass with Msgr. Seamus McGowan, Msgr. Thomas McGettrick, Father James Stembler, Father Peter Elizardo, Father Eric Chapa, Father Isaias Estepa and their chaplain, Father Don Downey, concelebrating.
 
Mother Maria Elva Reyes, Superior General of the Pax Christi Sisters, relayed the history of the Pax Christi Sisters and guest speakers recounted their own personal history with the Pax Christi Sisters.

Mother Teresa Santoya founded the Pax Christi Sisters in the Diocese of Corpus Christi on July 19, 1969. The order was initially named the Society of Christian Social Service. From 1970 to 1981. The sisters operated the Residence for Girls, within which the staff was committed to the attainment of the highest ideals in providing the very best toward achieving the spiritual, intellectual and physical development of needy children.
 
In 1985, a new ministry began. Vacant houses were purchased, remodeled and presented to families. From 1985 to 2011, more than 40 houses were presented to those who needed them.
 
The Pax Christi Liturgical Retreat Center was inspired by Mother Teresa. The Sisters see the mission of this center as a commitment to strengthen the faith of the participants by sharing the values of the Pax Christi spirituality, especially “oneness in the Lord,” and by creating a sacred place where Christ may be encountered, and faith renewed. 
 
Their spirituality is based on the scriptural quote “As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, I pray that they may be one in us,” and the Pax Christi Prayer is voiced as “Jesus lives in me; I live in Jesus.  Jesus and I are one.”  Their ministry is to take the Good News of Jesus Christ–the peace of Christ–to all humankind.
 
The sisters see their apostolate as twofold.  Through their spiritual apostolate they endeavor to lead the people of God to a profound understanding of the Mass, even as, through sharing the Pax Christi spirituality, they endeavor to bring about the salvific love mission of Jesus, described in the words, “That all may be one.” Through their apostolic apostolate, they minister to Jesus Christ in his humanity through the practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
 
The Pax Christi Sisters serve in seven convents in the United States and Mexico. The Corpus Christi convent is the motherhouse. Other Texas locations are in San Antonio and in Brenham. The other two convents in the US are in Woodstock, Virginia and the Bronx, New York. The Pax Christi Sisters also have two convents in Mexico, one in the State of Queretaro and one in the State of Michoacan. 
 
At the reception Mother Maria Elva Reyes, Superior General of the Pax Christi Sister welcomed all who had come to celebrate the auspicious occasion. "Rejoice with us. Today our Pax Christi Institute joyfully remember and honor our past, enthusiastically celebrate the present, and confidently we embrace the future,”  Mother Maria Elva said. “On behalf of Mother Teresa, our Foundress and all of our Pax Christi Sisters, I would like to thank God for this amazing day,” Sister Maria Elva said. “We have reached our 50th Anniversary of Foundation.”

  Shared Thoughts of Speakers at the Reception of the 50th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Pax Christi Sisters
 
Msgr. Lawrence White
Msgr. Lawrence White met the Pax Christi Sister when they arrived in Corpus Christi in 1969 from Laredo. At that time, he was serving as the Master of Ceremonies for Bishop Thomas J. Drury and witnessed the growth of the community of sisters. He recalls that they initially lived in the basement of the cathedral where the crypts of the deceased bishops were encased and slept on cots that Mother Teresa had obtained. From there they moved to a small house on Lipan and later to their present location in Calallen. Smiling, he shared with us, that he remembers Mother Teresa as being very determined and devoted to her community of sisters.
 
Raul Medina hales from Robstown and is an Administrative Assistant to Judge
Robert Gonzalez. said that when he first met the Pax Christi Sisters, he only knew of them as the sisters with the hats. He and his wife and three children were living in a 2 room house when they were nominated and selected to be the recipients of a brand new fully furnished 3-bedroom house. This life-changing event reinforced their faith and commitment to the Catholic Church. His three children have all become very successful in their chosen careers and he thanks God and the Pax Christi Sisters "for a hand-up-not a hand out."
 
John Ponce
John Ponce was born and reared in Corpus Christ and was very devoted to the church as a young boy. After graduating, he drifted away from religion of any kind. When his mother passed away and he and his sister were going through her things his sister suggested they donate their mother's furniture to the Sisters. He met Mother Mary Elva and Sister Guadalupe. They invited him to Mass and after 45 years of being away from the Catholic Church, he has become very active and even serves as an altar server. He knows that God had a hand in bringing him back home.

Julie Campbell
Julie Campbell has known the Pax Christi Sisters since 1969, as she was one of the first girls to live in the Pax Christi Sisters' Home for Girls. She lived with them from 1969-1979.

"I am 60 years old and I was one of the very first group of girls that lived on Lipan Street, the location where Mother Teresa first met with Bishop Thomas Drury and the Bishop accepted her and the sisters with open arms. The location on Lipan was short-lived. We lived there from 1969 to 1975 when we moved to this beautiful location in Calallen.
 
"I can't express to you enough that I am who I am today because of the Grace of God and because of the Pax Christi Sisters.

"Living at Pax Christi as a child and growing up into a young lady was something like none other. Yes, we were all normal children. We had our ups and downs, but the sisters made sure we lived normal lives. The sisters made sure the girls were loved, were made comfortable and safe. They taught us to be respectable young ladies. Every summer the sisters were faced with the same dilemma every parent is faced with when us girls were on summer break.
 
"The sisters made sure we were kept busy. We took dancing lessons; swimming lessons and some girls were even musically talented. Some played guitar and some sang like little angels. I even remember one summer Mother Teresa sending a few of us older girls to "charm" school where we learned how to eat properly, how to dress and how to even apply make-up. That was an awesome experience. Every day the sisters tried to turn situations into life lessons, from picking up a piece of paper from the floor that everyone was walking over, to our daily chores and even watching television.

"The television we watched were selected shows like The Waltons, Eight is Enough and so on. Every commercial, if Sister Consuelo could get a positive word in, she would. For sure at the end of the show, she would give it her positive and spiritual spin on the moral of the story. We were taught life's lesson even when watching the beauty pageants. She always reminded us how beautifully the losers would run to congratulate the winner. I often wonder if Sister Consuelo ever went to bed thinking to herself if we were actually listening and learning everything, she was teaching us. I think about that because as a mother myself, I often wondered the same thing. You talk to your children until you're blue in the face and you wonder if the child on the other end is actually hearing you. Well, I am here to tell that not only did I hear every word she said. I think it stuck with me. There are not too many days that pass by that I don't stop and think about my upbringing and all the positive and spiritual impact this institution had on me.
 
"Just because we lived as Pax Christi, didn't mean we never saw our biological parents. The majority of the girls were from broken homes, from broken parents who needed extensive counseling for whatever reason. I say that to tell you this ... we were allowed to visit our parents. We didn't see our parents every weekend mostly because that would cause a lot of disruption in the lives of the children. But as Mother saw healing taking place with the parents, the children would visit their parents once a month, usually the first weekend of the month. In my case, I found it very difficult to return home. I was scared of bringing disruption to the comfort and the safety I felt. Pax Christi was my home and I made it my only home.
 
"Although we lived at Pax Christi, we all attended the Corpus Christi public schools. While living on Lipan Street, we attended school at the Cathedral when the sisters of Incarnate Word were still teaching there. As we moved on in grades, we attended Hamlin Junior High and then WB Ray as we went into high school. Mother Teresa only wanted the best for her girls.
 
"Every day after school, we came home and were home long enough to freshen up and go to mass.
 
"We had beautiful Holidays, Thanksgiving dinners to remember and Christmas's you couldn't imagine. All magical. Our Thanksgivings dinners were like pictures from a magazine. We had a chef come in and do the cooking for us. Well ... we called him our chef. He has actually the husband of one of the girls that had already married. She was actually one of the girls that was at the home in Laredo, TX. He was a military guy who had become a chef in the military, so he knew what he was doing. Plus, he had us older girls help with the chopping and cleaning as he dirtied the dishes.

"One Thanksgiving, Mother Teresa got a bright idea. If my memory serves me correctly, a lot of the girls had gone home to be with their parents. There weren't too many of us at home. Her idea was that we were not having Thanksgiving at home that year. We were all going to Luby's for Thanksgiving. Let someone else do all the cooking and all the cleaning and we can just come home and relax. We all got dressed loaded the vehicles and off we went to Luby's for thanksgiving dinner. After we had all eaten, we all got up to walk back to the vehicles, when one of the 3-year olds tugged at Mother's skirt and asked her, "now can we go home and have our Thanksgiving?" Mother's heart dropped to her feet. You could see it in her face. She had a hard time explaining to that baby that that was our thanksgiving and that we were not having dinner at home. After that, she said never again! We will never
sacrifice our thanksgiving dinners again.
 
I would like to leave you with one thought and one prayer ... JESUS LIVES IN ME. I LIVE IN JESUS. JESUS AND I ARE ONE.