Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas, a Teresian nun, is the oldest nun in the world at 115 years of age. She is also the oldest person in Brazil and Latin America. Sister Inah is someone “who holds everyone in her heart. There are no exceptions. She treats everyone well, with love, whether they are little ones, adults, or elderly. “She’s a person that loves, she really loves”. The nun currently lives in the Provincial House of the Teresian Sisters of Brazil, the community she entered in 1927 at the age of 19. “My secret, my great secret, is to pray,” said Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas,. “I pray the rosary every day for all the people around the world.” Sister Inah always wants to be active. She continues to participate in community prayers and she likes to be in the garden and spend time with her sisters. Until recently, Sister Inah “painted napkins, made cards, did many things. When she had nothing to do, she would pick up a deck of cards and start playing. If she didn’t have anyone to play with, she would play alone. She had a lot of fun.” When she was a child, one of her brothers told her mother that Inah could study at a convent in her town. Inah then asked: “What are nuns?” Her mother answered that they were women who dedicated themselves to praying to God, to which she replied: “I’m going to be a nun.” Over more than a century, she has experienced many changes in the world and in the Church. She has lived through two world wars and has seen 10 pontiffs. Sister Inah was a teacher all her life. She taught Portuguese, mathematics, science, history, art, and religion in Teresian schools in Rio de Janeiro, Itaqui, and Sant’Ana do Livramento, a city she loved because it was where she spent most of her life.

(Picture Courtesy: ACI Digital)