Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

author and editor

Sister Consuelo Varela ICM Passes Away

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Our teacher at St. There­sa’s Col­lege San Marceli­no, Sis­ter Con­sue­lo Varela passed away recent­ly. She was a big part of my life. She was from Cebu, like me. When I trans­ferred from STC Cebu to Mani­la for High school, I felt out of place and lost. She was our teacher then, and she acknowl­edged my being Cebua­na, men­tioned know­ing my fam­i­ly to me, which lift­ed my spir­its up.

Sis­ter Con­sue­lo was strict in the begin­ning but loos­ened up when she knew the class. She was an excel­lent Lit­er­a­ture teacher. She taught us Shake­speare in a cre­ative way. Hav­ing those dra­ma plays in class made us mem­o­rize some lines in Shake­speare, and instilled an appre­ci­a­tion for Mac­Beth, Romeo and Juli­et, and King Lear, that I nev­er would have acquired if I were told to just read the plays.

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.

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.

Comments

  1. Was hap­py to stum­ble onto your sketch of Sr.Consuelo’s place in your life. I first met her when she was Prin­ci­pal of STC­Mani­la HS and i was a HS Junior in 1964–65. She was under­stand­ing and kind to me. I went to Assump­tion for Col­lege and lost track of her. It was only in Oct. 2017 that I saw her again dur­ing a rec­ol­lec­tion in the Queen of Peace Con­vent in the STCQC com­pound. She called me when she saw me in the cor­ri­dor and we chat­ted. I can appre­ci­ate from expe­ri­ence what you said, thatvteach­ing style changed and she became a friend. Those who had known her only as a strict teacher did not see that side of her. I regret not hav­ing had much time to chat with her more. She passed on less than a year & a half lat­er. When you wrote “I will miss her”, that res­onat­ed. I hear there will be a trib­ute to her at the STCM Jubi­lar­i­an Home­com­ing this Feb.22 at the Sof­i­tel Manila.

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