The power of a charism is unbelievable. Notwithstanding everything, it spreads and spreads, overcoming all obstacles, reaching even far away places.
What Saint Teresa of Jesus started in 1562 in Avila at San Jose, when she founded the first ever community of Discalced Carmeites, has now reached a girl from Kiribati in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Kiribati is a number of atolls, 32 in all, dispersed over 3.5 million km. This spread straddles the equator. A beautiful, basic country, very unique in many things. One in four people live below the basic needs’ poverty line. Kiribati is however famous for its world class fly-fishing, scuba diving, and seabird wildlife. The people are very very nice.
Population is just over 110,000. And this is where Teretia Tabutoa, or as she has been called in Carmel, Sister Naomi Batarah of Christ the Lord (Sister Sweet Crown of Christ the Lord ) comes from.
On Monday September 28th – which happens to be also the Yom Kippur, the most solemn feast in the Jewish calendar – Sister Naomi will do her first profession in the Carmel of Morristown, New Jersey. This is quite a trailblazing event because, apart from two apirants in the Carmel of Fahefa in Tonga, Sister Naomi will be the first Kiribati girl to embrace the Carmelite Reform in the whole world. Amazing.
Sister Naomi Batarah used to walk in the first Neocatechumenal Way in Teaoraereke parish in Tarawa. Here are some photos of Sister Naomi Batarah on her clothing two years ago.
‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’