Flowers for Mary

It all began as a promise to a dying friend. Remy Ignacio held the hand of Sister Ludgeris as she lay on her deathbed and asked, "What is worrying you? Is it your calendar?"

- MISSY SANARES-REYES

It all began as a promise to a dying friend. Remy Ignacio held the hand of Sister Ludgeris as she lay on her deathbed and asked, "What is worrying you? Is it your calendar?" The nun squeezed her hand. Remy went on, "Do you want me to continue it for you?" Unable to speak, the nun could only nod slightly. "OK, I will do it for you, Sister." She would pass away three days later.

The sister was a German nun who produced calendars yearly as her apostolate for charity. Remedios Ignacio did not know the first thing about making a calendar. Letting go in full trust, the good Lord guided her and things simply fell into place.

As a young lady, she had dreamed of being an artist and hoped to enter the College of Fine Arts, but her parents advised her to put her efforts into something more practical, thus obtaining degrees in Pharmacy and Pharmacology.

After falling in love, marrying and having eight children, she did not become a pharmacist, instead devoting herself to being a wife and mother.

As her children grew to become professionals in their own fields (one of her sons is Msgr. Clemente Ignacio of the Archdiocese of Manila), she and her husband, Engr. Luis Ignacio, were deeply involved and greatly instrumental in the building of their parish, Santa Maria della Strada in Quezon City—upon the urging of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin.