Finding Her Calling

In her work with prostitutes, single mothers, and battered women and children, Sister Mary Christina Oliva Sevilla digs beneath the bruised surface of each person. Her job, as she sees it, is to help each of them take hold of the soul inside that was created in the likeness of God.

That task became the cornerstone of her ministry in her homeland, the Philippines, and has guided her at Good Shepherd Shelter in Los Angeles. It’s also the mission of her religious order, Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

“The basic call of the Good Shepherd is the value of the person,” said Sister Christina. “We believe one person is of more value than a whole world.”

Now Sister Christina will try to use that same spiritual compass as she takes on new responsibilities as director of Filipino ministry for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

With the assignment, Sister Christina continues her work at the shelter, where she is educational coordinator and teaches morning computer classes. Her afternoons and weekends will be spent meeting Filipino priests and community leaders and visiting the hundreds of parishes with large Filipino congregations scattered throughout the sprawling three-county Los Angeles archdiocese.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony announced Sister Christina’s appointment Sept. 28, the feast day of San Lorenzo Ruiz, the Philippines’ first saint. The archdiocese’s outreach to the Filipino Catholic community began in 1990, but the selection of Sister Christina marked the first time that Filipino ministry became recognized as an official department within the Archdiocese Catholic Center on Wilshire Boulevard. The previous director, Monsignor Loreto Gonzales, worked out of his parish office at Holy Family Church in Artesia.

Increased recognition of Filipino ministry within the nation’s largest archdiocese illustrates how the Filipino community is gaining attention as one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the nation. In Los Angeles County, the 1990 census identified Filipinos as the second-largest Asian ethnic group, after the Chinese population. Statewide, the estimated 734,000 Filipinos represent the largest group of Asian ancestry. Nationally, by 2000, Filipinos are expected to surpass 2 million, becoming the nation’s largest Asian group.

The Philippines is the only Catholic country in Asia; church leaders estimate that about 88% of all Filipinos are Catholic. For that reason, supporting the surging community has become a higher priority for the hierarchy of the church.

But, in initial interviews with community leaders,Sister Christina has found that several Filipino congregations place more emphasis on assimilating than on preserving their own culture. Only a handful of parishes hold services in Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines. Several large Filipino congregations that were offered services in their native language politely declined.

“Some Filipinos don’t even want Tagalog Mass because they are embarrassed of their own language,” Sister Christina said. “As Filipinos, we are multitalented and highly educated. Most of us speak English. But on the other hand, we shouldn’t lose our identity.

“Part of my vision in this new position is to help our community affirm that we are Filipinos and it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she added. “God gives different cultures different gifts. If we become fully American, what is left for us to give?”

Persuaded to Take Post

Sister Christina, 55, was born in the city of Batangas in the Philippines. After she decided to enter the religious life, she came to Los Angeles in 1968 and became a group mother at the Good Shepherd Shelter, an independently run shelter within the Los Angeles archdiocese that houses up to 12 women. In 1976, she returned to the Philippines and worked in several group homes ministering mainly to prostitutes and teenage mothers.

In 1993, Sister Christina returned to work at the Los Angeles shelter, where she ministers to battered women and children. The move brought her closer to her immediate family, which lives here.

Initially, Sister Christina said she was not interested in the position as director of Filipino ministry. But out of the blue, priests and people in the community began approaching her and asking her to consider applying for the job. When she attended Mass at St. Dominic’s in Eagle Rock, which has a large Filipino congregation, people whom she didn’t even know pleaded with her to take the job, she said.

“So I was like, ‘Lord, are you telling me somethinghere?’ ” she said with a laugh.

Currently, Sister Christina is scrambling to organize the Philippine celebration of Simbang Gabi, a novena, nine days of Masses that lead up to Christmas Eve and will be celebrated in more than 100 parishes throughout Los Angeles.

“Like Italian Americans, Filipinos are very devotional. When they immigrated to this country, they brought several of their devotions with them,” said Sister Lucia Tu, director of Asian-Pacific and Ethnic Groups Ministry at the archdiocese.

Sister Christina is also working on getting a more precise estimate of how many Filipino Catholics are in the archdiocese. Although the church counts about 200,000, she says that number is too low.

“You can’t tell because in the Philippines, we don’t have this habit of registering in the parish. If we have devotion to a particular saint on a particular week, we go to that saint’s church. We like to be free,” she said.

With black hair that peeks from under her navy blue habit and an appealing modesty, Sister Christina describes herself as a person who wants not only to lead the Filipino people but also to hear what they have to say.

“I want to meet with all the groups and sit and talk to them. I want to know what they expect of me. I’m hoping they’ll define what they want from me.”