Tuesday July 16th: Woe, to you T&T!
July 16, 2024
Come away
July 16, 2024
Sr Magdalen Fields SJC will celebrate 70 years of Religious life on August 28. In advance of this, her Jubilee Mass was recently celebrated at Javouhey Hall, Arouca, with Fr Maurice White the main celebrant, and Frs George Lewis and Gregory Augustine CSSp concelebrating. The following is a tribute prepared by the Cluny Sisters.
Roselyn Fields was born May 28, 1926, in Mason Hall, Tobago. She made her first profession as a Cluny Sister on August 28, 1954. She left Trinidad and Tobago on September 17, 1955, with Sr Genevieve Baptiste SJC. This journey took them to France/England and finally to West Africa.
It was deemed a “missionary thrust”, by our Mother House in France, to send West Indian Sisters to West Africa (Sierra Leone & The Gambia) so that the people of those countries could see that nuns were not only Irish! Indeed, their presence did have that impact, as some young women realised they too could become nuns.
The passage of Hurricane Janet on September 21–30 forced the ship to dock in Martinique. Hurricane Janet was the most powerful tropical cyclone of the 1955 Atlantic hurricane season and one of the strongest hurricanes on record.
The ship eventually sailed to France, then to Plymouth, England and finally docked in The Gambia. After five years there, Sr Magdalen pronounced her Final Vows in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1960 and was reassigned there for five years.
In both Sierra Leone and The Gambia, Sr Magdalen was involved in primary school education, but saw herself primarily as doing the work of evangelisation.
She was asked again to return to The Gambia and this call concluded in six years of teaching/catechising, again all encapsulated in doing the work of evangelisation and homemaking (good spicy pepper sauce, and sewing).
When her father became gravely ill in February 1971, Sr Magdalen returned to T&T. She didn’t return to West Africa after his death. She lived at home in Arouca for three years, supporting her mother and being involved in catechesis at the Junior Secondary School in Five Rivers. Her mother passed away in 1986 at almost 88 years.
On her return to Trinidad, Sr Magdalen worked in St Joseph for one year, a short spell in San Fernando, one year in Grenada, and then pursued a year’s course in primary education at Leeds University, England.
Sr Magdalen continued ‘fanning up d fire’ and worked in Tobago at our Cluny Secondary School for 15 years, 1986 to 2001. Dominica followed from 2002 to 2008, then Arima from 2008 to 2022. But through all these various ‘Missions’, evangelising was her deep-seated goal.
Sr Magdalen recounts that her call to Religious life was ignited by the disastrous Cluny Convent fire of 1944 in Port of Spain, where four Irish Sisters perished. This was further fanned by the constant call of Sr Salene Cezaire to visit the Blessed Sacrament often. Her parents were decidedly not too happy that the eldest girl of eight children would abandon them to enter a “cloister”.
Sr Magdalen celebrated 65 years of Religious profession in 2019 with the community of the Holy Cross at Calvary Hill, Arima. This is what Generation S said of her then: “Abundant thanks for your ‘YES’, Sr Magdalen, and for the huge blessing you have been to all who had the distinct pleasure of crossing your path. Your ready smile and graciousness is [sic] outstanding, a beacon of light and hope in today’s world.”
Another comment read: “Sr Magdalen has truly touched so many lives, and we were young and unable to comprehend your way, but now it has paid off as you have groomed excellent young men and women for today’s society.”
Now at 98 years, having celebrated her Platinum Jubilee (70 years of Religious profession) on Saturday, June 1 at Lourdes House, Arouca, we are certain her parents are applauding her from the celestial chambers.
We hope that Sr Magdalen will hit that century. Her life is not a bed of roses with aches, pains and new surprises that come with ageing. However, she continues to bat on, holding close to her heart the motto of our Foundress, Blessed Anne Marie Javouhey (1779–1851) “the holy will of God”.
