Sister Lucy Lalsangzuali, CSC
Friday, Jun. 12, 2020
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Sister Lucy Lalsangzuali, CSC
August 13, 1974 ~ June 4, 2020
Sister Lucy Lalsangzuali, CSC, died on June 4, 2020, in Civil Hospital, Shillong, Meghalaya, India. Sister Lucy entered the Congregation from Khawzawl, Mizoram, India, on May 24, 1999. Her initial profession of vows took place on November 29, 2002.
Sister Lucy Lalsangzuali was the first young woman from India to enter the international Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Sister lived fully her 21 years in Holy Cross, her formative years beginning and ending in Shillong as a daughter of the Church and spiritual mother to many.
Lucy’s father and mother were simple farmers in Lungtan, a small, remote, multi-ethnic village in Northeast India. John Rualpela and Carmeli Rokhumi Varte were devout Catholics and active parishioners. Lucy, born in Lungtan on August 13, 1974, was the fifth child of four daughters and four sons. Her parents, despite some hardship, arranged to educate Lucy at the Holy Cross Brothers’ School in Champhai, where she also boarded and worked from 1988 to 1993. Eventually her parents settled in Khawzawl, where the Holy Cross priests had opened a parish.
Lucy completed her higher secondary education in 1996 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Khawzawl Government College in 1999. Father Simon Fernandez, CSC, and Father Harry D’Silva, CSC, encouraged Lucy to enter the Sisters of the Holy Cross, who had established their first mission in India, in Shillong. With the encouragement of her parents, Lucy Lalsangzuali began her formation in Holy Cross in Shillong on May 24, 1999, as an aspirant, then as a postulant. On December 7, 2000, she began her novitiate in Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She was the only Indian among her peers in Bangladesh.
Sister Lucy subsequently completed her professional government teaching degree at the College of Teacher Education in Shillong in 2010 and earned a Master of Arts in sociology at Madurai Kamaraj University, Shillong, in 2011. During those years of study, she was simultaneously engaged in ministry. She was an enthusiastic teacher of youth and a social worker with women in her years of ministry from 2002 to 2017, teaching in Agartala, West Tripura, India, twice at Saint Andre High School and at Our Lady of Holy Cross School.
When Sister Lucy lived in community in Bodhjungnagar, while teaching and studying she found time to sing and plan activities for her neighbors, the orphans of Holy Cross Boys Town, a ministry of the men of Holy Cross. Sister Lucy’s last two missions were in Meghalaya, India, at St. John Bosco Secondary School in Nongstoin and St. Paul Higher Secondary School in Jatah village, East Khasi Hills District.
From 2012 to 2014, Sister Lucy participated in the Sisters of the Holy Cross Leadership Development Program, beginning in Ghana, West Africa, where the Holy Cross sisters had established ministries in 1967. Her administrative internship continued in Salt Lake City, Utah, at Holy Cross Ministries and at Saint Vincent de Paul, Our Lady of Lourdes and J.E. Cosgriff Memorial schools. Sister Lucy’s leadership was affirmed when she was elected a delegate to the sisters’ General Chapter in May 2019. Later elected a councilor for the Area of Asia, she assumed office in November. A short time later, she took seriously ill and never fully recovered.
When Sister Lucy made her perpetual profession of vows in Shillong on October 31, 2008, she committed her heart forever “to Jesus who died for me.” Responding to God’s love song, she likened herself to “a guitar in the hands of my Music Master.”
You are invited to donate to the Ministry with the Poor Fund in Sister Lucy’s name.
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