By Laura Ann Phillips

Trinidad-born Sr Angilla Corraspe, OP, celebrated 25 years of religious life on Tuesday, June 16 with Holy Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Bridgetown, celebrated by Msgr V Harcourt Blackett and concelebrated by Bishop Emeritus Anthony Dickson, and six priests, which included three Dominicans.

Surrounded by more than 200 of her religious sisters, friends, well-wishers and devoted young people from the Diocesan Youth Commission, Sr Angilla renewed her perpetual vows during this Mass.

Having served in the Diocese of Bridgetown for almost 15 years, she noted, “I think I spent more years here in Barbados than in Trinidad!”

Originally from Sangre Grande and later living “in Central”, Sr Angilla served at Holy Name Training Centre, Port of Spain, and at St Dominic’s Home in Belmont before her transfer to Barbados in 1994.

Sr Angilla Corraspe, OP and Sr Kathy Joseph, OP in Melbourne during the “Days in the Diocese” at last year’s World Youth Day in Australia.

She was sent first to Our Lady of Sorrows parish in St Peter, where she served for five years, then was transferred to St Patrick’s Cathedral from 2000 – 2003. She was returned to the previous parish until her 2008 transfer to Our Lady, Queen of the Universe parish in Black Rock. She has been Diocesan Youth Co-ordinator since 2006.

The young people in her charge, who were seated right behind the Dominican Sisters at the Mass, have formed strong bonds with her, describing Sister as, “passionate and loving, a disciplinarian, but still sensitive”.

“Sr Angilla joined the convent at a time when few joined religious life and the priesthood and few of the few survived,” declared homilist, Fr Clement Paul, OP. Sister had decided back then to remain with her given name instead of choosing a religious one – a decision, Father surmised, that must have been very unpopular at that time in the early eighties, when she would have met with no small number of traditionalists.

Still, she ploughed on, serving the poor and disadvantaged wherever she was placed, including persons living with HIV/AIDS.

“We have our own Mother Teresa in our midst, God’s own work of art,” said Fr Paul. “Her heart goes out to people nobody else wants – hidden, unseen. We don’t have to go to India to the Daughters of Charity, we just have to look among ourselves. Thank God we don’t have to go overseas!” In times of personal discouragement, he said, Sister’s advice to him was simple: “You cannot let evil win.”

“She carries within her a rich treasure,” declared Fr Paul, “and carries in her body the marks of Jesus Christ. She has loved, failed, sinned, cried, cursed, laughed, served and, as Bajans would say, ‘hurted’ quite a lot.”

“It has been 25 years of joy,” Sr Angilla insisted, “because my motto is, “I know in whom I believe” (2 Timothy 1: 12). It has not been without its ups and downs, but I have never been in doubt.”

Having worked with persons of all ages and from all walks of life, Sr Angilla noted a general reluctance to joining the religious and consecrated life.

“We live in a time of ‘hopelessness’,” she noted, “and it is very hard to get people to commit anywhere. It seems to be live fast and religious life seems to be unproductive and slow.

“But, I tell people that wherever you are, you have to live one minute at a time, one second at a time. I think I am here after 25 years because I took every minute and lived it to the full.”