On Wednesday, January 25, 2017, the Sisters of Providence welcomed Carolyn “Lyn” Lobo, MD, into the novitiate in a 6:30 p.m. ceremony in the chapel at St. Joseph Residence, 4800 37th Avenue SW, in Seattle, followed by a reception. Lyn has been a trauma and critical-care surgeon at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, Calif. The day after the ceremony, Lyn will move to the novitiate in Spokane.
Because of the demands of her medical licensure and work schedule, the road to the novitiate has been a unique one for Lyn. Since September 18, 2014, she has been a candidate for membership in the religious community, living with the sisters in Seattle and Spokane in a mutual discernment process to the extent that her busy surgical schedule in California allowed. She was able to live in community with the sisters, spend time in prayer and reflection on sacred Scripture, attend gatherings including first and perpetual vow ceremonies, and participate in some of their ministries.
The Provincial Superior and Council of Mother Joseph Province have approved Lyn to live her canonical year in Spokane in three sections, with intervening returns to California as an apostolic novice working as a surgeon.
Lyn is grateful for the opportunity to enter the novitiate while continuing to work and keep her medical license. “I am grateful for the opportunity the sisters have given me to be part of their community. I will try my best to be the best Sister of Providence that I can be.”
Lyn was born in Manora, an island in the Arabian Sea, into a devout Catholic family in the Portuguese tradition. She learned about and was attracted to religious life at a very early age. As a newborn, she was known as “BabLyn” to the Franciscan Sisters of the Heart of Jesus, a Maltese community. In her early school-years she was taught by Daughters of the Cross, a Belgian community of sisters, and she came to know the Dominican cloistered nuns of Perpetual Adoration through school retreats at their monastery.
Lyn always knew that she wanted to be a surgeon and entered medical school in the British system initially, and then went to England for a clerkship (practicum) in general medicine, obstetrics and surgery. Her residency was in surgery and her fellowship was in surgical critical care.
It was at that point that she began to clearly hear God’s call to religious life and began a discernment process with her spiritual director, Franciscan Sister Rosa Maria Branco. After completing her studies, Lyn was recruited to Providence Holy Cross, where she met the Sisters of Providence in 2011. Contact with the vocation office led to a visit to Seattle and Spokane, followed by acceptance of her application to become a candidate.
“This draws me,” Lyn has said. “I can hear God calling me. I want to develop the call so I can really know what it means for the community and for me.” Her hope is to serve in ministry and to have an opportunity to get closer to God. “I want patients to know that I am a woman of prayer and that my prayer for them is inseparable from my service to them.”
Her co-workers in California have been very supportive of her decision to pursue religious life, Lyn said. “They are happy for me and wish me well.” The sisters also are happy for her, she said adding that many have shared their experiences of the novitiate as well as “their hopes, values and goals which are similar to mine. Mother Emilie Gamelin (foundress of the Sisters of Providence) prayed that sisters would love the poor and seek peace and unity. That is the goal that I am looking forward to in the novitiate.”
Sisters of Providence are Catholic women religious who respond to the needs of the poor and vulnerable through education, parish ministry, health care, community service and support, housing, prison ministry, pastoral care, spiritual direction and retreats, and foreign missions. Mother Joseph Province encompasses Alaska, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Washington, El Salvador and the Philippines. For more information, visit the website at http://www.sistersofprovidence.net.
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