News of the Day

Sr. Adolfine Tonnies, the cofounder and first superior general of the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters (Pink Sisters), is now a candidate for beatification. She received the religious name, Mary Michael, from our founder, St. Arnold Janssen, SVD. She remained in the Lord in the cloister, but she also founded new adoration convents in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, China and the Philippines. Today there are about 350 Adoration Sisters, living in 22 convents in various parts of the world, constantly in adoration and remaining with our Risen Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

That's great news. I remember when I used to go to the Chapel of the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters, or Pink Sisters as they were called, in Baguio or in Quezon City with family and or friends. The Pink Sisters were the contemplative part of my alma mater, College of the Holy Spirit. And growing up in a private Catholic school with nuns, it was simply natural to have a close connection with the nuns. And when I saw the Pink Sisters (because they wore pink habits) in Baguio for the first time, cloistered but not quite unseen, just separated by a gate inside the chapel, from outsiders, I was in awe! They looked so pure and beautiful! And they didn't just look happy, they were in bliss.

I wanted to be like them... but, alas, I wasn't deserving. I was just not as pure and beautiful as them. So the closest I could get to them was to go to Baguio up in the cold mountains as often as I could, wake up at 4 a.m. in freezing cold (that was a big sacrifice but I'd do it just to see them!) to get ready for the 6 a.m. mass, to be close to them as humanly possible as I could, as hundred others did the same thing, to watch them as they did their morning procession to the chapel, and hear their beautiful angelic voices as they sang their devotional prayers...

Aah, I can still hear their voices... Thank you, Sister Adolfine Tonnies, for co-founding the Pink Sisters with now Saint Arnold Janssen. I will pray for your sainthood through the most powerful intercession of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 


Praise the Lord.