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Sr. Mary Damien Born in Honolulu, Sr. M. Damien was the first vocation to enter from the new foundation in Hawaii (established in 1974). As a junior professed, she volunteered for the missions, and made her perpetual profession in Italy in view of her mission assignment. After serving in Kenya, she was called back to the generalate in Rome, where she's been ever since as the congregation's dependable English translator. Favorite book: I have two: The Collected Works of Shakespeare and The Complete Murphy's Law. Why? Because I think Shakespeare and Murphy both have keen insights into human nature and they present those insights in a very telling and often humorous way. And Shakespeare is such a superb wordsmith that he's always a delight to read! Favorite movie: The Lord of the Rings. Not just because it's one of the most popular movies being aired these days, but because I've loved the trilogy ever since I first read it more than 30 years ago and I think the movie is a very faithful and successful interpretation of the text. The cinematography is also outstanding. Favorite saint: St. Joseph-a simple, humble person, who stayed in the background and was content carry out the ordinary duties of daily life as well as possible. Favorite art: Traditional Japanese art: clean, classic, "no frills" art that radiates the essence of things in a simple but very powerful way. Facing the next 25 years, I would say the same thing I said when I celebrated my 50th birthday last year: "From now on, I intend to embrace every day as a pure gift of God!" It's pretty awesome to realize I've already lived half a century, especially when the news is filled with cases of people who die much younger than that for various reasons. All I can say is that God has been extremely good to me: he has blessed me with a wonderful family, good health, a vocation I love, an apostolate I find enjoyable and challenging, and sister-companions who have enriched my life and most assuredly expanded my horizons. Even if I were to find out tomorrow that I had a serious illness or a very short time left to live, I could only continue to thank God for his immense goodness to me and renew my resolution to embrace each day and each event as the loving gift of a Father who wants me to use every circumstance as an opportunity to grow and to deepen my relationship with him and with others. I was taught by the Maryknoll sisters from kindergarten through high school but while I liked and respected the sisters, I never thought of becoming a religious myself and the sisters (who were in their heyday of expansion, with full novitiates back at their Motherhouse in New York) did not carry out any active vocation work, so none of them ever encouraged me to explore whether or not I had a vocation to the religious life. In college, the thought drifted through my mind from time to time that I might become a sister, but at that time the only religious in Hawaii were teaching and nursing institutes, and one community of cloistered nuns. None of those ministries appealed to me and since I thought that that (plus social service/welfare work) was all that sisters did, I never investigated further. Because I loved books, I'd majored in English literature at the local university and after I graduated I debated if I should continue my studies and get a Master's Degree in Library Science. While deciding whether or not to do this, I worked for a large real estate company in downtown Honolulu. One day on my way to work, I noticed a new bookshop near Our Lady of Peace Cathedral. Immediately attracted to the place, I dropped in at the end of the day to inspect it and was astonished to see that the shop was run by religious. The sisters explained that they were the Daughters of St. Paul, they had just arrived in Hawaii, and that their mission was to evangelize by means of the media. Then they promptly invited to me to day of recollection they were organizing for young women. Intrigued, I accepted the invitation. One encounter led to another and the more I came to understand the mission of the Congregation and see it in action, the more it appealed to me. Other young island women were equally fascinated by the Daughters of St. Paul and their unique mission and about 10-15 of us attended each monthly retreat. After knowing the sisters for about 5 or 6 months, attending their monthly retreats and helping out in the book shop on Saturdays, I decided to take the plunge and accept their invitation to enter the Congregation. It was terrifying to leave Hawaii and travel not only to the Mainland but across the entire United States to Boston, where the Province's formation house was located, but I did it and I guess it was the right choice because after 25 years I'm still in the Congregation. Considering my initial fear at the thought of leaving Hawaii for "the wide world," I find it amusing that in the years since then my apostolic activities have taken me across yet another ocean and to two other continents! Sister Denise
Cecilia Benjamin
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