Sister Palmira Biancolin at 100, 64 in India
The missionary is a member of the Religious of Mary Immaculate. She left Italy in 1953 for India. Her congregation helps and protects girls in growth and education, until they find work.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) – Sister Palmira Biancolin, a member of Italian origin of the Religious of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated her first 100 years on Thursday, 21 September.
Her fellow sisters prepared a birthday party in gratitude for her 64 years in India helping girls and women. “We, the Sisters of Community would like to thank you, Sr Palmira for all your love and dedicated service to the Province and thank God for His generous gift of you to our Regina Pacis Community.”
Sister Palmira was born in Zoppola, a small town in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Her parents, Antonio and Genoveffa, were blessed with five girls and three boys. As a child, she expressed the desire to become a missionary.
The meeting that changed her life took place in Rome when, at the age of 14, she met the Religious of Mary Immaculate. There and then, she decided that she would take her vows and devote her life to serving God and the girls and young women of the congregation.
When she was 20, she began her education in Rome, followed by her novitiate in Paris, and her final profession of perpetual faith in Spain.
Afterwards, she spent several years between Jerez de la Frontera (Spain) and Rome, until she found out that the order had opened a new home in Mumbai, India. At that point, she asked to go there and her request was accepted.
On 1st January 1953, she set foot on Indian soil, and began her life as a missionary, fulfilling the wish she had expressed at a tender age. In Mumbai, Nashik and Delhi, she took care of girls and young women, for the protection of children in congregation colleges, and for the improvement and promotion of girls and young women living in cities.
She offered tribal girls and women seeking jobs in the big city her loving care, teaching them the value of hygiene, honest work, and preparing them to be good domestic workers.
Her fellow nuns said that from time to time Sister Palmira talks about her childhood in Italy. At that moment, a smile comes across her face, but then she says, "I'm happy here and I want to stay here until the end."
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