Mother Upie @ 60

-By Rev. Fr. Philippe A. B. Gallanosa

Sr. Maria Clare Guadalupe, OSC - Ms. Rosalita Oliveros Paril to the secular world, ''Mother Upie'' to those who know her personally - today Friday, 19th of July 2019, celebrated her 60th Diamond Jubilee of Religious Profession, at the Poor Clare Monastery, Bari-is, Cabid-an, Sorsogon City.

Her religious community, family, friends, benefactors, the whole Diocese of Sorsogon, and indeed the whole Church, rejoice with her. The Solemn Concelebrated Holy Mass was presided over by Most Rev. Victor Ocampo, DD, Bishop of Gumaca, with Most Rev. Arturo M. Bastes, SVD DD, Bishop of Sorsogon, as concelebrant and preacher. Present also were the secular clergy, notably, but not only, from Sorsogon and Gumaca, religious clergy from the Franciscan and Augustinian Fathers, religious and lay faithful.

Mother Upie was born on the 6th of September 1936. Surrounded by the warmth of love, she grew up with an early attraction to be a nun thanks to her family and the RVM Sisters with whom she had first contact with religion. When she was 19, she courageously decided to enter the monastery and on the 31st of October 1956, young and beautiful Rosalita, entered the Real Monasterio de Santa Clara in Quezon City. She persevered with the grace of God throughout the preliminary adjustments, and on the 18th of July, 1958 Rosalita became Sr. Maria Clare Guadalupe, OSC, with her final vows on the 19th of July, 1959.

Sr. Guadalupe was sent together with a group of sisters to Calbayog, Samar to there found a Poor Clare Monastery. After the initial difficulties, their presence brought joy and peace to the people and even drew young ladies to enter the monastery. By 1984, during her silver jubilee of religious profession celebration, she could count among whose lives she touched, as instrument of the Holy Spirit, other sister servants of other monasteries elsewhere in the world.

Sr. Upie, as she is by now fondly called, was sent to yet another mission. She led the pioneering group of Poor Clares to Sorsogon. For long years she was the Mother Abbess of the Claritas Sorsogueñas. After a few years of work, with the generous help of the Sorsogueños and Bikolanos from elsewhere here in Bikol, and always with the Divine Providence, they were able to build their present monastery dedicated to the Our Lady of Peñafrancia, the Ina of the Bicolandia. It was in Sorsogon where, now Mo. Upie, celebrated her golden jubilee. And presently her diamond jubilee.