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Culture

Sister Joyce Ann is pictured at her residence, the house of the Marist Missionary Sisters in Waltham. Pilot photo courtesy/Development Office

Retired Sisters Collection

Friday, November 14, 2025Culture

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With joy and gratitude fueling their perspective on life, it is easy to see why retired sisters like Sister Joyce Ann have a positive impact on all they meet.

The call to leave one's homeland to carry the Gospel message to people in another land would intimidate most people, but not Sister Joyce Ann. Stepping into a different culture, learning a foreign language, and navigating unfamiliar customs can be daunting. But to Sister Joyce Ann Edelmann, a Missionary Sister of the Society of Mary, following the missionary call felt natural and providential.
For 46 years, Sister Joyce served the people of Papua New Guinea joyfully as a nurse, as a midwife, as a trainer of catechists, as a spiritual director, and other roles. To meet Sister Joyce is to come face to face with a servant of God whose heart has been on fire for Christ and his people since the very beginning.
In 1966, when Sister Joyce was a young sister having recently professed her religious vows, she was missioned to the island of Bougainville, one of the outermost islands of Papua New Guinea. She already had a nursing degree when she traveled to Australia, where she studied midwifery for one year before reaching her destination of Bougainville. Throughout her seven-year stay on that island, she worked as a nurse and midwife but also helped start a teacher training school and a nursing school.

Later, the call came to help evangelize and train catechists. So, Sister Joyce went to the mountains, travelling to an elevation of 14,000 feet to the interior highlands. It was there that she embarked on a special mission to teach the people of Papua New Guinea how to learn to read and to write in Tok Pisin (often referred to by English speakers as "Pidgin"-- an English creole language spoken throughout the country). A lingual soup of sorts, Pidgin is a mixture of English, German, and native tribal words. As her "students" learned to read, write, and count, Sister Joyce saw the world unfolding before them.
"The villagers would come with their families, and they had no educational background. They would count on their fingers, then their wrists, then their elbows. When they needed to express a higher number, they would say, 'It's plenty. It's plenty.' They didn't have a way to communicate a number for very large amounts. Everything was just 'plenty'."
In the highlands, the Papua New Guineans had never been exposed to things that the Western world deems commonplace. For example, while facilitating a Bible study, Sister Joyce asked the participants to open their Bibles to page 300. "They didn't know how to find a page in the middle of a book because they had never read a book. They had never been to school. They didn't have the concept that 'two' always follows 'one,' and 'three' always follows 'two,' and so therefore, that '300' must be somewhere in the middle of the Bible."
"Another time," she recounts, "I was talking with the catechists, and I referenced the world being round. They just stared at me. I brought out a small globe and showed them where I came from and where they lived in relation to the rest of the world. That globe received a lot of time and attention as they were filled with incredulity, wonder, and curiosity! For them, their tribe and the neighboring tribe were all they knew. But then again, how would they know any differently?"
As a nurse and midwife, Sister Joyce experienced many moments when she was the sole respondent to emergency situations. "Often, when a woman went into labor, another woman would accompany her. Many times, they would come at night, and they knew where my window was. They'd stand under my window and call, 'Sister Doctor, Sister Doctor' and I knew what was needed. A few times, I even met them on the road because they hadn't quite made it to the clinic," she recalls with a chuckle.
Sister Joyce became masterfully fluent in Pidgin, which was very helpful given that there are 834 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. As a "White Skin," Sister Joyce and the other missionary sisters were widely recognized and, more importantly, trusted. "In many places, we were the first white people they had ever seen. They had never seen Westerners before."
Living with very little money (only a small stipend), no electricity, and no running water, life was very simple -- and also very fragile. Malaria and pneumonia claimed many lives, and, at that time, the country's average life expectancy was 40 years old. But as is common in underdeveloped countries, there was a palpable joy that radiated through the people.
As the years went by and as more and more people trusted Sister Joyce with their faith journeys and problems, she decided to join a Jesuit renewal program and become trained as a spiritual director. That led her to return to Papua New Guinea's coast and facilitate a retreat house for her final eight years in the country. "I was older then and I sought a more contemplative life," she said.
As Sister Joyce sits now in the Marist Missionary Sisters' regional home in Waltham, she is thoughtful in her reflections. "I've had a very interesting life. Papua New Guinea is a very beautiful country, very peaceful. I love that our new pope was a missionary because he understands the work that is done on behalf of Christ's Great Commission all around the world."
"And we just received our first canonized saint on Oct. 19! Peter To Rot was a Papua New Guinea catechist who was martyred by the Japanese in 1945 after being imprisoned for his religious activities during World War II. He was sentenced to death after he publicly opposed the Japanese encouragement of polygamy and continued to conduct secret religious services despite bans. His martyrdom was the result of his defending Christian marriage and morality. He was just canonized on Oct. 19, 2025, and became the first saint from Papua New Guinea. I am so glad that the people have their first saint."
With joy and gratitude fueling their perspective on life, it is easy to see why retired sisters like Sister Joyce Ann have a positive impact on all they meet. Their universal missionary spirit -- a spirit of prayer and sacrifice -- is an important reminder for all Christians to carry the Good News in our hearts and share it abundantly at every corner of our world.
Each November, we have an opportunity in the Archdiocese of Boston to express our appreciation to the many retired religious sisters who answered the distinct call to holiness. These remarkable women have sacrificed and served so many throughout their lifetimes. It is now our turn to message our gratitude through the annual collection.
Please join me in supporting these lovely women and all of our wonderful, retired sisters through the Nov. 22 and 23 Retired Sisters Collection to be taken up in the parishes of our archdiocese.

MOLLY M. WADE IS THE VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OFFICE OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON.