Sister Consuelo Varela ICM Passes Away

I remem­ber once a friend and I were stand­ing in line to go to the audi­to­ri­um or some­place. We were bored and we walked a short dis­tance to where a gut­ter end­ed and peered down into the ground. Sis­ter, who was mak­ing sure we all stood in a straight line, came over,and asked what we were star­ing at. She looked down at the earth too. See­ing noth­ing, she told us, “Get back in line” — but mat­ter-of-fact­ly. I remem­bered that inci­dent because she did­n’t just get angry at the two of us for step­ping out of the line, but actu­al­ly hon­ored our curios­i­ty.

Sis­ter went on to become an activist and became even soft­er to us. By then, the style of teach­ing had changed. She became our friend.

I owe her a lot and will miss her. May she rest in peace.

~

The Ban­tayog ng mga Bayani that hon­ors mar­tyrs and heroes of the the strug­gle against dic­ta­tor­ships in the Philip­pines post­ed this about her:

“Prayers and con­do­lences to the ICM Sis­ters for the pass­ing of Sr. Con­sue­lo Varela, ICM. We pay trib­ute to Sr. Con­suy for her self­less and untir­ing effort to live out her faith through jour­ney­ing with the poor and mar­gin­al­ized in their quest for gen­uine peace and jus­tice. Coura­geous­ly, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the move­ment against the Mar­cos dic­ta­tor­ship and suc­ceed­ing cor­rupt regimes. She her­self deep­ened her reli­giousi­ty through immers­ing with the mass­es, espe­cial­ly with the work­ers. Tru­ly, hers was a faith lived well and a life spent mean­ing­ful­ly. Mara­mi pong sala­mat.”

This is not Sis­ter Con­suelo’s image, but this is a pen and ink and pen­cil draw­ing of a St. There­sa’s Col­lege nun when they wore the long habits.