Assumption Iloilo’s “Cotton Between The Sheets Of Glass” - Sr. Anna Carmela Pesongco R.A.

Before the call of religious life, for as far as her memories are able to go, the young Sr. Anna spent her childhood living a life on the intersection between two worlds. Her childhood home intervened right where the beachfront met the farm right at the back of her house. Once the sky turns bright blue, and the sun is high in the middle, she, her older sister, and two brothers spend the day playing in the seashore. And once the sky turns different hues of pink and orange, and the moon takes the sun’s place, they spend their evenings surrounded by family: her grandparents, and cousins, praying the Angelus together, collecting the harvest from their farm after.

“What is it about the religious life that makes these sisters leave their countries to serve God even until death?”

As a boarder of the Assumption College in Iloilo, in search for her life’s meaning, she found herself at Adoration and the Benediction in the big chapel every afternoon, joining the sisters.

St. Marie Eugenie’s story tells us, our life’s calling first speaks to us in a whisper. For the young Sr. Anna, she heard that whisper while observing the elderly missionary sisters unfailingly spend their time in prayer everyday.

“What is it about the religious life?”

The question that frequently echoed in the curious mind of the young Sr. Anna. Yet, God’s plan manifests in His perfect timing, and very soon, that timing finally reached the point of perfection for her.

“I had the courage to join them at 19”

Sr. Anna, in her life’s springtime, heard the whisper turn into a clear voice, along with her sister. “My older sister and I entered the convent together, at the disappointment of my father,” she humoredly added.

In the convent, she found a new world, not so far from the two she grew up in between. She found love, she found a home. There, she lived in the Community with her former teachers: Sr. Edith Cortes, who she called “Our famous “Mother Edith of the Science Department”.”, Sr. Inocencia Vigilar, Sr. Katherine May Dougherty, Sr. Rosalma Ladrido, Sr. Lourdes Tirol, and the sisters who are now united at the Assumption Community in heaven.

“I can truly claim that I was formed by the Sisters to be who I am, taught by the RA’s to be an RA educator today!” she said, appreciatively.

But even then, her journey along God’s golden road for her extends seemingly endlessly as it continues right at the horizon.

She completed her Master's studies at Xavier University in the “City of Golden Friendship”, Cagayan de Oro City, and her Doctoral studies in Educational Leadership and Management in the Philippine Women’s University. Presently, she celebrates 38 years of sacrifice, hard work, and endless love for having been a Principal of the different Assumption schools scattered across our very own continent that she has been graciously assigned to throughout the years.

Every step she took through this golden road was a step closer towards the gift of wisdom, gained through experience. She shares with us a piece of that wisdom: “Every school is unique, but the same philosophy of education from the time of St. Marie Eugenie animates the school communities: "Education is to allow the good to break through the rock that imprisons it, brings it to light where it can blossom and shed its radiance.”

Her first assignment in Iloilo was her longest one, lasting 13 years. Her road took her to Assumption College in San Lorenzo where she served as President and College dean. From there, she moved along into Baguio to animate the St. Martin’s elementary school. And after 6 years, her journey took her back to where her vocation to be an Assumption sister began.

After 15 years, she finally returned to Iloilo.

“Be the cotton between sheets of glass to keep others from shattering” - Saint Marie Eugenie of Jesus

She is the cotton between glass because of her gift to transfigure lives through her ability to teach, and help lost students find their way back to God’s light. She finds beauty beyond tangibility in the transformative power of the Assumption Education as it radiates in the lives of the graduates: the Old Girls, and Old Boys, the stories they share and the memories that permanently changed them to be the best versions of themselves.

For her Final Profession, she chose only one word to be her motto that is now engraved on her ring. The word she replied with when the religious life called to her, the word that sums up her relationship with God. “YES!”

Sr. Anna, who was once a little girl playing with her siblings in their own little paradise, praying with her family, exploring their farm for fruits and knick-knacks and playthings, who also questioned what her future looked like, who experienced hardships but learned to fall in love with them, who faced obstacles but learned to overcome them, who was once standing in the very place you are planted right now, grew to become the Sr. Anna, school director of Assumption Iloilo, that you know right now.

Just like love itself, in the eyes of St. Marie Eugenie, Assumption Iloilo’s newest school director, Sr. Anna Carmela Pesongco RA, also never says “I have done enough”.