Srs. Mona and Brigida Smiley, CCVI

Photos: Sisters Mona Smiley (top right) and Brigida Smiley (bottom left)

The Providence of God, Sisters Mona and Brigida claim, put them in a home where “my mother had deep, deep faith, which she passed on, and so did my father. And they never envied people who had lots of money, they just didn’t. As long as they had enough, and they could help a neighbor.”

The same faith and generosity were also exhibited by Anne, a much older sibling, who had earlier joined the Incarnate Word Sisters in Texas and “wrote about, and how happy [she and the other Sisters] were, and how they were really involved [in different ministries and] how evangelization was taking place as a result. Each person has the power to evangelize in one way or another.”

“I guess they [our parents and Anne] evangelized me in the process,” Sister Brigida remembers. So, the young Mona and Brigida were excited and followed their older sister. “We were going to Texas.  All we knew of Texas was Hop Along Cassidy, and whatever we saw in the movies.”

Sister Mona recalls, “[I had a] great devotion to the Little Flower, St. Teresa, and I had read every book in her life, but I wasn’t a Holy Joe walking around. But…I identified with her family, and her father was very much like my dad. He was very kind and very generous.”

Eventually, the Sisters’ parents emigrated to Minnesota in the United States, and that made up for the initially painful experience of leaving home. Sister Brigida was able to take care of them in their later years.

That experience in Minnesota was so gratifying for Sister Brigida that she brought back to San Antonio a program for the elderly, “Sisters Care.” Other Incarnate Word Sisters joined Sr. Brigida in ministering to the aging. They were also generous and dedicated, forming a truly inspiring team.

But there was the practical matter of financing the program. To discern whether to take up this task, Sister Brigida went to the Incarnate Word Sisters’ cemetery and “asked each one who had died to help me.” She got the spiritual encouragement she needed from her predecessors and also the emotional support from the Sisters in the convent. They could see “how the elderly were transforming me. I couldn’t verbalize it, but they (other Sisters) could see it, and that prompted them to join me” in this new mission.

Sr. Brigida, of course, had the background for this new endeavor. She had gotten a master's degree in Math from St. Louis University and taught at Incarnate Word College before working in the Financial Aid Office.

All the while, Sister Mona dedicated her efforts to Adult Education, a relatively new field at the time. She earned a doctorate at Texas A&M University and taught in the Continuing Education Program at the College and one summer at Virginia Tech. She also collaborated on a book on that topic.

While meeting different needs, like the other Sisters, both Sister Mona and Sister Brigida were driven by the simple Mission principle: “You don’t discount anybody” – in their case, adults wanting to learn and seniors wanting to live out their lives happily and with respect.

Here are Sisters Mona and Brigida responding to the call of service.