By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

“If she could stand up, she would be dancing,” said Molly Anguay, describing Sister Rose Anthony Tanio eight days before she succumbed to a long battle with cancer.

Anguay had visited the ailing Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet at her convent in Aina Haina on Feb. 19 with a group from the Cursillo retreat movement. Sister Rose Anthony had been their spiritual director. As they sang songs to her, Sister Rose “waved her arms in the air, all smiles.”

Her death at the Carondelet Center on Feb. 27 took away “that big smile” that was practically her trademark. She was 78 and a Sister of St. Joseph for 56 years.

A novena was scheduled for her March 1-9, at 6:30 p.m., at the Carondelet Center.

Her funeral is March 10 at St. Joseph Church in Waipahu, beginning with a “time of remembrance” at 9 a.m., Mass at 10 a.m., and lunch at 11 a.m. Her burial is at 2 p.m. at Diamond Head Memorial Park.

“She was a wonderful person to live in community with,” said fellow Carondelet Sister Brenda Lau who shared an apartment with Sister Rose Anthony in the 1990s in Kalihi Valley Housing, when the low-income project was grungy and neglected.

The two were members of a mini-community of St. Joseph sisters who lived among the mostly poor residents while offering counseling, educational and social programs.

It was a perfect fit for the spirited, joyful Rose, said Sister Brenda.

“She had a lot of energy,” she said. “She was a go-getter, sometimes stubborn, always upbeat.”

The embedded sisters-in-residence offered the tenants everything from house visits and emergency assistance to computer classes, entrepreneurship projects and Easter egg hunts.

Sister Rose Anthony’s official titles at the housing were Youth Education Coordinator/Office Manager, Resident Assistant and Entrepreneur Program Director. As an advocate for tenants’ rights, she was one of those who helped bring to reality the project’s new residential buildings.

Kalihi Valley Housing was only one bright facet to Sister Rose Anthony’s long and luminous vocation.

Sister Rose Anthony was born in Lihue, Kauai, on July 3, 1928, but grew up on Oahu in Waipahu. There she became acquainted with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet who taught catechism at St. Joseph Church.

After working a few years for the U.S. Navy on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, she entered the Carondelet convent in Los Angeles at age 22, joining her younger sister Phyllis who had entered earlier.

Sister Rose made her first profession in Los Angeles on the feast of St. Joseph in 1953 and her final profession on the Feast of the Assumption, 1958.

She taught in parochial schools in California from 1953 to 1969, before coming to Hawaii in 1970 to teach for three years at St. Anthony School in Kailua. Then it was back to California in 1973 for more teaching and postgraduate classes in Berkeley.

Her return to Hawaii in 1978 opened the door to a variety of ministries. As the religious education coordinator back at her childhood parish of St. Joseph, she pushed enrollment of public school students to its record peak of 500.

She also served as a parish minister at Immaculate Conception Parish in Ewa.

She lived and worked in Kalihi Valley Housing from 1990 to 1999 while she was also coordinator of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) at St. John the Baptist Parish in Kalihi.

While serving in Hawaii for 20 years, she had remained a member of her order’s California province. She transferred to the Hawaii vice-province in 2000.

For five years she was spiritual director of the local Cursillo organization, though she had played an active role in the lay spirituality movement for a much longer time.

According to Bruce Anguay, coordinator of Cursillos of Hawaii and Molly’s husband, Sister Rose Anthony gave meditations and spiritual talks on four weekend retreats a year.

“She was our lifesaver; she was always willing to help out,” Molly said. “We couldn’t do without her.”

Even when she became ill and was going through treatment, she still insisted on attending, participating in her last retreat in mid-2006.

“She was always bubbly and always uplifting,” Bruce said. “She kept us going. She was an inspiration to all of us.”

“She was always a joy to be around,” agreed Molly. “We used to call her ‘kiat,’” an affectionate Filipino term that means “rascal.”

Sister Rose Anthony’s last Carondelet assignment was as secretarial assistant to the vice-provincial director at Carondelet Center in Aina Haina.

A remembrance written by her community after she died offered this observation: “Up until the last weeks of her life, her question each morning was, ‘What can I do for you today?’”

“The rainbow arc of Sister Rose’s life was based on her love of ‘My people, God’s children,’” the tribute concluded. “Any visitor or local felt very special because she lavished her care, time and attention on each one as if no one else mattered. She was to each of her friends their own ‘special Sister Rose.’”