Dear Sister Albina,
...I was praying beside your dear sister's coffin this morning. I had just been thinking what a woman of faith Sister Gabriel Joseph was. From what I know of you and your brothers, you will accept in faith God's calling her so suddenly to himself.
Sister Gabriel and I had a very satisfying visit on Saturday morning. She planned to go to the Dominican Sisters' convent in the area of Chimbote known as Laderas del Norte to make a day of recollection....Before she left here Saturday evening, she took out a pretty little white handherchief with your nametape on it. "Isn't this pretty?" she said, "My sister gave it to me."
The quake hit on Sunday at about 3:25 p.m. Sister Gabriel was in the Dominican Sisters' chapel with Sister Catherine, O.P., Sister Edith Mary, O.S.F., and Sister John Cassian. They ran downstairs, but when they got to the door, it was already caving in. Sister Catherine broke her way through; Sister John Cassian was trapped, but her hand was sticking out and she could call, so the Sisters were able to get her out (her back is injured, but it is not known how severly.) The convent went down like a house of cards, with sisters Gabriel Joseph and Edith Mary still within. As we discovered later, Sister Gabriel suffered a blow on the back of her head, which must have produced instant death. Apparently, Sister Edith Mary was also killed outright.
Several of the Dominican priests saw the house collapsing. Some went right over to help, another, (Father Linus Dolan) came to tell us. They worked heroically, and at great risk to their own lives, to try to tunnel through to the Sisters. At last, they found them and anointed them. Some hours later, using a wrecker and a bulldozer, they managed to remove enough of the rubble to get the Sisters' bodies out. It was 8:45 p.m. when they brought out Sister Gabriel.
The priests who assumed charge of the rescue operation were Father David Butler, whose face was bloodstained from a head injury sustained when his own house caved in; and Father Ted Breshin, O.P. who just would not give up trying to reach the Sisters, no matter how dangerous it was, since we still hoped they might be alive. It was Father Ted who found Sister Gabriel and was able to reach in and anoint her between the shoulders.
Father Enrique Camacho took Sister Edith's body to the convent where she lived, and Father Jules Roos and Father Damien Myett took Sister Gabriel's back here. We rode in the truck with him. Father Jules provided us with a wooden coffin, plain, painted black, with a cross on top.
Sister Catherine Patrick [Sister Lucy Tubbs] and I started to wash the body, but found only a few drops of water. (The water main was broken, as were our water containers also.) Sister Mary Kay Kottenstette said the water filter in their barriada convent was intact, so she went over and got some. Father Damien, Sister Mary Kay, and the neighbor, Senora Carmela de Sarmiento, prepared the body. I put my rosary in Sister's hands.
You will be relieved to know that her body was not mangled and her face looked at peace. She was always prayerful and it seems a special providence that she was on her knees before the Blessed Sacrament when the call of God reached her.
This morning, Father John Core and Brother Albian Morris came over to help us put Sister Gabriel's body in the coffin. You understand, here people do not follow our North American (pagan?) custom of embalming. I like the simple, natural, Peruvian way much better. It seems not to be putting "artificialities" between the person and God. I nailed the coffin shut and Sister Francine put a little bouquet of white chrysanthemums and a red rose on it. It is now in our chapel before the altar - Sister Gabriel's charge, of which she took such loving care.
One detail I forgot to mention: during the time the men were trying to reach the Sisters under the ruins of the convent...an elderly (70 year-old) Dominican, Father William Cassidy, came over to stand beside us and pray. As we were saying the De Profundis, one of the rescue workers came over and put the tabernacle, which he had clawed out of the debris, into Father Cassidy's hands. So we finished the psalm in the sacramental presence of Our Lord.
The Dominican Sisters at whose convent Sisters Gabriel, Edith [a Franciscan from Pittsburgh], and John Cassian [Sister of St. Joseph of Nazareth, Michigan]were making their day of recollection said that at noon the retreatants had a very happy discussion. They remembered Sister Gabriel saying, "We must go out to the people and let them know we are their friends." She herself did that in life, and will rise to glory among the Chimbotanos on the last day.
Although it is almost 24 hours since the quake, the earth begins trembling again at irregular intervals. Having run out of the house four times since beginning this letter, I am finishing it sitting on the curb in front of the house. Light, water, and telephone lines are all disrupted. There is not mail service either, but I am hoping to be able to send this to Lima with someone to be mailed from there.
I would appreciate it if you would share this letter with your brothers of whom Sister Gabriel was so proud, and with Sister Mary Seraphine. There couldn't have been anyone better prepared than Sister Gabriel. I am sure she will be an intercessor for us all. She was a woman deeply spiritual and zealously apostolic.
Sister Gabriel mentioned a number of times how much she enjoyed her home visit this year. It will be a joy for you to remember also.
Our prayers are with you. May Christ be your consolation.
In Him,
Sister Marie Esterre (Sister Patricia McHale)."
from Sister Mary McGlone's book: Comunidad para el Mundo: The History of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and the Vice Province of Peru
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