For the third time since 2008, Sister Ann Venita Britto is finding herself in the community spotlight.
Two years ago, she was inducted into the Manteca Hall of Fame. Two years before that, she was the honoree at the annual St. Anthony’s Education Foundation dinner fund-raiser for Manteca’s parochial school.
So when she was told on the phone by a member of the Women’s Connection Committee that she was one of the 10 Women of Influence being honored this year, her reaction was one of “shock” and “disbelief.”
It took a while before the committee’s messenger was able to convince the Indian-born member of the Daughters of the Cross religious order that the message was real and not a prank.
Having gotten over that first shock, the peripatetic nun’s next object of curiosity was the reason behind the honor.
“What did I do? I just do my own little thing with my seniors and the sick and the dying,” she said matter-of-factly.
The phone call was so unexpected that she thought the woman who was looking for her was calling to inquire about one her many outreach projects in the community. As the person in charge of St. Anthony’s Ministry of Caring, Sister Ann’s days are so full that the woman who was trying to get a hold of her on the phone found it such a challenge to track her down that she probably would have needed the help of a GPS.
In the end, Sister Ann’s caller gave up on a face-to-face meeting to surprise the nun with the good news contained in a ribbon-accented long and slender white box and reluctantly revealed the message on the phone.
“You should be proud,” the caller told Sister Ann.
“I said, proud of what?” Sister Ann recalled asking.
“You do so much in the community; you touch so many people,” was the response.
Sister Ann is one of 10 people being recognized as Women of Distinction during the upcoming Feb. 17 Women’s Conference hosted by the Manteca Convention & Visitors Bureau. The others are Dorothy Indelicato, Evelyn Prouty, Rose Albano Risso, Lucille Harris, Toni Raymus, Bea Bowlsby, Linda Abeldt, Patty Reece, and Karen McLaughlin.
The many lives that Manteca’s own “Mother Teresa” touches every day are indeed many. They range from the seniors at care homes and the homebound, the handicapped, the sick at home and those who are at the dialysis center in Manteca several times a week, to the prisoners at the Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy.
Her outreach does not stop there. After launching the seniors’ luncheon several years ago – it’s open not only to parishioners of St. Anthony of Padua but from all churches in Manteca, Ripon and Lathrop – she started the Ministry of Caring and Consolation which reaches out to those who have lost loved ones. This ministry includes a “grief support session.”
She also brings Holy Communion to some of the homebound, and makes arrangements for priests to hold Masses at the care centers.
She goes to DVI in Tracy once a week to “do my prison ministry.” Her ministry includes praying and teaching the prisoners to pray. Sometimes she holds Bible studies and discussions with them. The prisoners have to sign up to participate in these activities.
There’s a “whole group that comes” to the prison’s “big chapel” for these meetings, Sister Ann said. Currently, there are about 50 to 60 inmates attending the Bible studies, she said.
Her luncheon for seniors, held during red-letter days during the year such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are always popular. The hot meal prepared by volunteers and served to guests on covered long tables accentuated with theme centerpieces made by Sister Ann and her slew of volunteers is not the only attraction. The two-hour luncheon held in the St. Anthony School gym also features live music by a seniors band called The Jubilee Singers, dancing, and drawing for door prizes that all visitors get to bring home. The luncheons are entirely funded by donations from generous individuals and groups. The manpower to get the parties going is also entirely all-volunteer. The Manteca CAPs group, in fact, simply refers to Sister Ann as “the party sister.”
46 years in religious life, and decades as teacher, principal
When former St. Anthony of Padua Church pastor Father Richard Morse hired Sister Ann to do outreach work in the parish, she already had 17 years of teaching under her belt. First, she was a teacher then principal at St. Bernard School in Tracy. After that stint, she went to teach kindergarten at St. George School in Stockton. She came to St. Anthony Parish in 2002.
“I needed a break from teaching,” she simply said, explaining the job change.
Born in Mumbai (Bombay) 68 years ago on Jan. 27, Sister Ann finished her studies in India before she joined the Daughters of the Cross founded by Blessed Marie Therese (Jeanne Haze). She has been a member of this religious order for 46 years. When their foundress was beatified and declared Blessed in 1991, Sister Ann was one of several members of her congregation who met with the late Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. It was also at that time when she met Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger while walking in St. Peter’s Square. A photograph with the cardinal, who would later succeed Pope John Paul II as Pope Benedict XVI, now hangs on a bulletin-board collage of “Memories” photographs in Sister Ann’s office in the ministry building. A framed photograph of her and other members of her congregation with Pope John Paul II taken at that same visit in Rome also occupies a special place in her office.
Sister Ann’s family now lives in Canada where they immigrated from India. She is the youngest girl, and the middle child of two sisters and two brothers. Both sisters are now retired. They both plan to be in Manteca when Sister Ann is honored as a Woman of Influence. Her oldest sister was a teacher in India. Her other female sibling worked as a secretary and later worked as a teacher’s aide when her son was in school. One of her brothers, the youngest, is manager of a Bed, Bath and Beyond store in Canada. The other brother is an engineer working for an oil company, also in Canada. Sister Ann’s parents, who also moved to Canada from India in the 1970s after they retired, are deceased. Her mother passed away just a few years ago at the age of 96.
Sister Ann came to California in 1976 to teach at St. Bernard School in Tracy.
