Sister Margaret Lacson, co-founder of Kalakasan Migrant Women Empowerment in Center in Japan, marks 25 years with the Maryknoll Sisters. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
MARYKNOLL, New York – An activist Filipina Maryknoll nun, who has been with Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish (Yukinoshita Catholic Church), in Kamakura, Japan for more than two decades, will celebrate her 25 years with the Maryknoll Sisters.
Margaret Lacson, MM, a native of the Philippines, ministers to abused women, fights trafficking and works for the improvement of the status of women immigrants, will celebrate her 25 years with her order, along with two other sisters from her congregation, at a special Mass Saturday, August 15, at 1:00 p. m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
The Mass, which will feature songs from the sisters’ homelands and places of service, will be concelebrated by Father Michitaka Yamaguchi, priest of the host parish, and Maryknoll Father Dennis Moorman.
Sister Margaret is co-founder of Kalakasan Migrant Women Empowerment Center, Kanagawa, Japan, where she has worked since 2008. She has also worked at women’s shelters in Kamakura, Kyoto and Yokohama and with orphans since 1993.
Born in Bacolod City, Philippines, the tenth of 17 children, Sister Margaret always felt the deep influence of her faith, both as a child and throughout her life. After being educated by the Benedictine Sisters from grade school through college, she received a bachelor of music in piano degree from St. Scholastica’s College in Manila and taught music for several years at St. Scholastica’s Academy.
At 27, she decided to enter the convent after working as a secretary and editor of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWT) and coming into contact with the Maryknoll Sisters for the first time. She recalls being moved by Maryknoll’s efforts of working “not only for the liberation of the country but of the women, as well.”
Sister Margaret made her First Vows on August 15, 1992, and was assigned to Japan. After completing a language course in Tokyo, she spent her first several years in Kyoto, volunteering in after-school activities for children coming to KiboNo Le.
In 1995, she relocated to Kamakura, Yokohama, the most populous region of Japan. There, she worked to empower battered women at a Catholic relief shelter and, after a period of renewal, ministered to pastoral migrants from the Philippines.
She also worked for Action in Asia, an organization dedicated to exposing social injustices, particularly to foreign audiences, and developed an interfaith connection between Christianity and Buddhism at San Un Zenso with Zen practice. In 1999 she professed her final vows.
In 2002, she became one of the founding members of the Kalakasan Migrant Women Empowerment Center, which works to stabilize foreign women and their children in Japanese communities.
Its ministries include hosting a crisis intervention program, follow-up care for abused women, networking for improvement in the legal status of migrants and women and administering a babysitting cooperative for single Filipina mothers, among many others.
She has described her work as helping both children and adults “learn to know and love themselves as part-Filipino” in a foreign country. Furthermore, she has also been involved in anti-trafficking movements, to which organizations such as Kalakasan contribute. She continues her work in Japan today.
Founded on January 6, 1912, Maryknoll Sisters is the first US-based congregation of Roman Catholic women religious dedicated to foreign mission. They now number 450 members and serve in a wide variety of ministries throughout the world. For more information, visit www.maryknollsisters.org .
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