Sr. Cecilia Chinenyenwa Kanulor is a strong woman! She is fairly tall and hold herself erect. She faces the challenges of life head on and with much good humour.
Cecila comes from Nigeria, from Ahiara Ahiazu Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State. She was born the tenth child in a family of eleven, she had seven sisters and three bothers. You can imagine that being one of the youngest in a large family group, she became used to community life from a young age. Her aunt, Sr. Therese Jane Ogu, entered MMM over 60 years ago and quietly, Cecilia watched her aunt and weighed up her vocational choices. She says her aunt exemplified all the qualities she would later admire in the MMM Sisters she would meet - compassion, simplicity, understanding, and care.
After leaving school, Cecilia studied Nursing and midwifery before joining MMM. She enjoyed community life, and settled in well. Her first assignment after her First Profession of Vows was to Abakaliki where she worked in the hospital. Her initiative and competence were noted. Soon she was asked, with other Sisters, to spearhead a new mission in Torugbene, Bomadi, southern Nigeria in Delta State.
Cecilia enjoys life. Her hobbies are wide and varied. She is interested in music, reading, dancing, cooking, making friends, and in indoor and outdoor games. When she came to Drogheda, she showed interest in the jigsaws some of the Sisters were making.
In 2020, Cecilia travelled to Cork to upgrade her Nursing Studies. Unfortunately, it was right in the middle of the pandemic and most of the studies were online. This was a challenging time to be a student but she was characteristically philosophical:
“The pandemic experience has taught me to live in the present and to be flexible in my personal and public relationships. Meanwhile, life experience keeps on encouraging me according to Reinhold Niebuhr, to ask God each day for the tranquility to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the discernment to know the difference. For example, the alteration of life by covid- 19. With this in mind, I seek God’s face each day through prayer and the happenings around me while leaving everything in God’s hands as well as trusting Mother Mary Martin’s mantra that if God wants the Work God will show the way.”
On her return to Nigeria after her time of studies, Cecilia went back to Torugbene.