WHEN Queensland went into mourning for losing the State of Origin opener in Townsville, Sr Monique Singh couldn’t help but explode with pride.
The other Sisters in the Oxley house are a mix of honorary Queenslanders born overseas and several diehard Maroons supporters, so there was certainly disappointment at the loss.
But true to the Canossians’ love of neighbour, they let Sydney-born Sr Monique feel the joy of a win.
“I may be in the minority here but it was sweet exhilaration,” Sr Monique said.
Seeing the Blues win a game while living in Queensland is one thing; preparing to become a Sister for life three weeks later is otherworldly.
“To share in his dream,” she said.
“What a privilege.”
God’s dream could not be more different to Sr Monique’s dreams.
The only daughter of Barbara and Graham Singh from Taree, on the vast North Coast of New South Wales, if life had gone according to Sr Monique’s plan, she would be traversing the world right now as a world-class ballerina.
It was more than just a dream – it was her first love.
“That’s something that had captured my imagination and what for the best part of my schooling years and after that,” she said.
She committed to her passion after high school when she studied full-time at a dance school in Sydney, putting her whole heart into a possible dance career.
“I did do auditions and so forth overseas, and it’s just a very competitive world,” she said.
In the end, though, “it didn’t work out”.
Failure, Sr Monique says, isn’t the right word to describe the fallout from dance, or rather, gently walking away from it.
Instead, there was “a real possibility” for Sr Monique to pursue choreography, so as to keep dancing close to heart, even if she wasn’t centre stage.
“I’d forgotten I could do other things besides dance at this point,” she said.
There was another niggling feeling though, that maybe God was somehow in the decision to take up choreography.
“Very strongly, when I was feeling like ‘I don’t know what’s going on with my world’ it was very much a presence of ‘You’re just where you’re supposed to be right now, I’ve got something for you’,” Sr Monique said.
“I only understood later it was to get me to Brisbane in order to meet the Sisters otherwise I would still not know about the Canossian Sisters.”
Years earlier, as a sixteen year old, Sr Monique had a similar experience of God’s quiet inspiration while reading a book.
Her heart was warming to the idea of religious life, but having only ever met one nun, she couldn’t picture herself as a Sister, so she placed the thought at the back of her mind.
When she accepted her new career change as reality, Sr Monique applied to study choreography in Brisbane, home to the Maroons, and also the Canosians.
It was during her first two years at university that she first heard about the order -– the Canossian Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor – since the Sisters don’t have a presence in New South Wales.
“I think I saw a flyer in the Cathedral – oh, retreats, Canossian sisters, what is this? Let’s go,” she remembers.
She was profoundly moved by their joy, and while she explored other orders, her heart always felt at home with the Canossians.
Quick, quick, slow
Sr Monique’s vocation call was slowly and steady, a daily exercise in trusting that God might actually be calling her to religious life.
She continued to pursue dance while staying in touch with the Sisters, but for her honours, her heart was torn between two worlds.
“I have this dance world and I have this developing spiritual life, I had to put them together,” she said.
“So I did sacred dance as my honours.
“That’s sort of when I was starting to let go of how I control all of this story and just let God speak into that.
“That was in 2008 and in 2010 I started extended come and see time.”
A year later, at 27, Sr Monique entered postulancy, moving to the Philippines to study with other young women discerning religious life.
“My mum even came over to the Philippines when I was over there, and she was like, ‘Even here Sisters are laughing, laughing’,” Sr Monique said.
“Yeah, that’s right – (that’s) the joy.”
On July 4, Sr Monique make her final vows at Canossa Chapel, located in the heart of Canossa Private Hospital in Oxley, in front of family, friends, and her lifelong Sisters.
Life as a Canossian couldn’t be more different to life on centrestage, but for Sr Monique, the rewards are even greater.
“All of the things that have led me to this point continue to give me affirmation, courage, trust, that all will be well in Him, and to quietly go about everyday in that trust is what he asks,” she said.
“What I’m given in return is infinite love.
“I just come back to ‘grateful’.
“It used to be quite scary, and I’m coming to just be really very at peace with knowing that it’s really God calling me to this life and he’s never going to leave me, he’s never going to abandon me.”
Daughter of God first
Being a Canossian Daughter of Charity means Sr Monique is, first and foremost, a daughter of God, and then a servant of the poor.
“I show my love of God through my service,” she said.
Founded by St Magdalene of Canossa, Canossian Sisters are, as written in the rule of their foundress, “everyday called to contemplate the love of Christ crucified and bring that out to people so that others may know Jesus and therefore love Jesus”.
The crucified Christ makes up every aspect of a Canossian Sister’s life – from the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, to how they compose themselves around other people.
Sr Monique even brings the charism into the classroom at Parklands Christian College, where she teaches Christian Life Skills, Visual Art and Design.
“We make it personal,” Sr Monique said.
“It’s a very big aim but St Magdalene says, don’t worry.”
Sr Monique is peaceful now about her former dance life, but at one point she viewed it as a part of her life that was “chasing lesser things than God’s dream”.
The preparations for her final vows helped her to see things from a different perspective.
“If we haven’t had a first love, not necessarily in terms of marriage, but something that’s been a pursuit of the heart, and been able to let that go and say, No God, you are my first, how can I say you are my first if I had not chased anything else?” she said.
“I can see it as a time, I had something that was a treasure to me and I can let that go and offer to God my whole self.”
