M. Mary John Mananzan, OSB installed Prioress

Introduction made by Sr. M. Soledad Hilado, OSB

M. Mary John Mananzan, OSB was installed as Prioress by M. Irene Dabalus, OSB, Prioress General, at St. Scholastica’s Chapel, Manila on April 22. The installation took place during the Eucharistic Celebration presided by Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales, D.D. All the superiors and sisters from different stations came to show their loyalty and support to the new prioress.

Sr. Soledad Hilado, OSB, who gave the introduction just before the Mass, described her former student, now the

Sr. Mary John's installation as Prioress

Prioress, in his manner, “Then there was

a college student too who was called by one and all, ‘Jill’ – I guess, because of her long name, Guillermina Mananzan. She tells me that as a student she could almost memorize all the pictures on the calendar in the Office of the Dean – pictures which she used as excuse and starter for a “chat”. After graduation, Jill also joined the Missionary Benedictine Sisters and soon, she was no longer “Jill” but Sister Mary John.

Graduate studies in Germany and Rome, then Sister Mary John was appointed Dean of College and remained so for some 21 years with a Sabbatical sometime within that stretch. We worked closely together during 8 and more of those years. During her Sabbatical, she met the Filipino women working in Madrid and initiated the Centro Filipino there while doing her research. Then she became President of SSC for 6 years. By then and way before, Sister Mary John had already read and surely had her life guided by the Rule of Benedict. Faculty and co-administrators, staff and other personnel appreciated her very much for her “style” of leadership – trusting, consultative, participative, sharing responsibility, affirming. Qualities our Holy Father Benedict teaches in his Rule and surely characterized his own leadership not only as Abbot but also as founder and Head of the Order. Creative and enterprising, too, objective in weighing issues and with a sense of commitment that translates dreams into realities. Though we do not read those as such in the Rule, St. Benedict must have been all of that and more, or we would not have the Benedictine life today.

Dear Sister Mary John (when I greeted her with the PAX after he election, she told me, “Don’t you dare call me, ‘Mother’). As you start your God-given work and life as Prioress today, we pray for the continuing guidance and grace of God – a grace that builds on nature. Since, although we have good will and good intentions, we, your Sisters in the Manila Priory, are not yet saints – hopefully we shall be in ages to come! – so, certainly our Prioress will need help and graces a-plenty to lead us in meeting the challenges God’s work in the world poses before us. We realize that and assure you of our prayers, our cooperation, our efforts at oneness in God with everyone in our communities, our Priory, our Congregation, and the Church – that in all things that God Whom we all love above all else, may be glorified!”

Taken from the Manila Priory Bulletin

St. Scholastica’s Priory

Volume 33, No. 5

February – May 2004