Salesian nuns in Cambodia are celebrating the first vows of Sr Mary Tang Sovathanak, 29, the first local member of the congregation. Sr Sovathanak, 29, described the occasion as “a special day” since she is now a “bride of Christ”, UCA News reports.
“I don’t have anything to give him back,” she said, “only my life to him.”
More than 150 people attended the special Mass, concelebrated by the heads of the three Church jurisdictions in Cambodia, to mark the occasion on Aug. 5.
Monsignor Antonysamy Susairaj, apostolic prefect of Kompong Cham, where Sr Sovathanak comes from, presided at the Mass, held at the Don Bosco Vocational Training Center for girls at Tek Thla, Phnom Penh.
Sr Sarah Garcia, superior of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco in Cambodia said she was overjoyed.
“My prayer is that she will be able to live out her journey faithfully,” she said.
All the other 20 Salesian nuns in Cambodia are foreigners.
In his homily, Bishop Susairaj noted that Sr Sovathanak’s mother was one of the first Catholics in Kompong Cham when the Church revived here in the 1990s after decades of civil war and religious persecution.
Sr Sovathanak studied at the Don Bosco Vocational Training Center for girls, run by the Salesian congregation, and graduated in 2003 in secretarial and computer studies. It was while studying at the center that she first decided to become a Salesian nun.
“I was attracted to the simple life of the nuns. They are always smiling and putting their lives in God’s hands, even though they encounter problems.” Moreover, she said, “holiness does not come from just impressive deeds, but also from small acts carried out with love.”
Sister Sovathanak is the oldest in her family of four children. Her father, a Buddhist, is director of a primary school, and her mother, a Catholic, is a vendor at the local market.
Speaking after the ceremony, Sister Sovathanak’s father, Tang Phirom, 51, admitted he had wanted his daughter to marry and have children, but now accepts his daughter’s decision.
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