By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Two Maryknoll Sisters with Hawaii ties celebrated their 25th anniversary of religious life on July 29 at the Maryknoll motherhouse in upstate New York.

Sister Yoo Soo Kim, a Korean native serving in Hawaii, and former Hawaii resident Sister Leonila V. Bermisa marked their jubilees with a special eucharistic celebration in the Maryknoll Sisters chapel at Maryknoll, N.Y.

Sister Yoo Soo, who lives with the Maryknoll Sister community in Kailua, Oahu, is an artist and dancer.

Her artwork, which includes photography, oil painting, traditional Korean paper cutout collage, monotype printmaking, mixed media and watercolors, has been shown in more than 40 solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Korea. Her newest work explores mysticism and movement beyond time and space.

Her dancing pursuits have explored a “sacred movement” which integrates body, mind and spirit as a simple natural and flowing prayer. For 10 years, she has been a co-director of the Moving Prayers’ Group at the Mystical Rose Oratory at Chaminade University of Hawaii. She has also been an active member of the Sacred Dance Guild International.

At workshops and retreats for interfaith gatherings Sister Yoo Soo has led in the U.S. and Korea, participants experience empowerment, growth and healing.

Sister Yoo Soo was born and raised in Kochang, South Korea, the youngest of seven children. Observed praying in the chapel while a student at a Salesian Academy, she was invited to become a Christian. She was baptized on Aug. 15, 1966. Her joyful faith led to the conversion of her family.

With a degree in fine arts from Chosun University, she taught art in the Korean Middle Schools for two years while developing skills in painting, copper enameling and ceramics in her own studio.

As a team member of the Better World Movement for seven years, she observed Maryknoll Sister Alice Cardillo’s work with patients with Hansen’s disease. That experience led her to search for ways to serve others. Her quest brought her to the Maryknoll Sisters whom she joined in Seoul in 1982.

She made her first vows in 1985, and lived for two years in a Korean Maryknoll community of religious and lay persons. She came to Hawaii in 1987 where, observing the many and diverse cultures and faiths, she explored ways to bridge art and dance in bringing people together to grow in faith.

In 1991, she represented the Maryknoll Sisters at the Seminar on Peace in Asia and Women’s Role. Planned by women leaders from South Korea, North Korea and Japan, it was the first south-north women’s meeting in Korea since the division in 1945.

Sister Leonila, formerly of Our Lady of the Mount Parish in Kalihi Valley, has been Maryknoll’s Director of Vocation Ministry at Maryknoll, N.Y. since April of 2005. Before that she served as a missionary for two decades in Asia.

Sister Leonila was born in San Manuel Pangasinan, Philippines. She earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and in law before joining her family in Hawaii in 1974. She worked in a couple of Honolulu law firms as a legal assistant before getting a job as a paralegal in New York. She entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation in 1982.

Assigned to Indonesia in 1984, Sister Leonila helped faculty members at Parahyangan University improve their English skills. In Jakarta she ministered to women escaping prostitution and worked in Magdalena House, a transition house for the women.

She was sent in 1989 to the Philippines, where she worked in the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace, documenting human rights violations in Zamboanga del Sur. She was also the coordinator of the justice and peace program for the Prelature of Ipil, Zamboanga del Sur.

In Western Mindanao, Sister Leonila coordinated the work of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, a group of sisters and priests from various congregations and dioceses working among the rural poor. She created SABAKAN, a women’s program that provided skills training, and justice and peace education to rural and indigenous women, as well as paralegal assistance to women victims of rape and other violence.

In Calapagan, Lupon, Davao Oriental, she supervised a program for out-of-school youth, and in Luzon, she researched and documented human rights violations against peasants.

Sister Leonila has a master’s degree in religious studies — women and religion from the Institute of Formation and Religious Studies in Manila. She has served on the institute’s faculty and was appointed its academic dean.

She was also a member of the executive board of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines.

From 2002 to 2005, the Maryknoll sister did research and documentation of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the Philippines. She was also a resident administrator for Talitha Cum, a temporary home for women victims/survivors of sexual violence, and supervised projects at the Immaculate Conception Center for Child Development in Malabon, Metro Manila.

She recently received a doctor of ministry degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary and is a member of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.