There ain’t nun older than her.
Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella, the world’s oldest nun at 112, has 4 phrases of recommendation for anybody who needs to match her longevity
“Teach until you die,” Piscatella, who celebrated her birthday in late April, instructed The Submit.
Piscatella, who’s having fun with her golden years on the South Shore of Lengthy Island in her 94th yr of service to the Catholic Church, stated individuals ought to observe the great they’ve’ve seen from their family members.
“You have to be a saint before you get to heaven.”
Now dwelling in Amityville’s Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse, Piscatella had an extended journey of religion and destiny all through her years.
“For some reason, God doesn’t want me yet,” the longstanding member of the Dominican order stated. “I feel normal. I never gave my age a thought, it just happened to be.”
When she was simply 2-years outdated and dwelling in Central Islip, she misplaced her left forearm in an accident with a passing practice — a life-altering occasion that Piscatella made essentially the most of.
“I was the second oldest of seven children. My mother wouldn’t let them help me because ‘you’re not always going to have your sisters, so you better just shape up and do things for yourself,’” she stated.
“That’s what I did. Nobody really ever had to help with anything,” the centenarian added.
A blessed life
Rising up in a big household of Italian immigrants, the calling to Catholicism got here from the love she noticed her household prolong to the household and group.
Her father, a foreman with the Lengthy Island Railroad, introduced day by day sandwiches his spouse made for a employee who confirmed up routinely empty-handed at lunch, and her mom was recognized to steadily cook dinner “a big Italian meal” for the nuns on the town.
Rising up in that atmosphere, it grew to become a simple name for Piscatella to hitch the order proper out of highschool, she stated.
“It was normal for me to help people, and I liked helping them,” the tremendous senior stated.
Nevertheless, discovering a convent that might settle for her with just one arm in 1931 proved difficult, and Piscatella needed to bodily present that her incapacity wouldn’t be a hindrance to service.
She solely discovered her manner into the Dominicans thanks to a different nun searching for a change of surroundings and leaving a instructing place within the void.
“The priest said, ‘Well, can she teach?’ And the sister said, ‘Oh, she’s a great teacher,” stated Sister Francis Kammer, Piscatella’s shut pal, former pupil and roommate for 45 years.
“And he said, ‘Then she stays.’ And she never looked back.”
Piscatella taught from her coronary heart on all kinds of topics, from math to historical past and arithmetic, whereas working in administrative roles since that fateful day at age 17 — till she was 84.
“Well, I don’t want to brag, but I was a pretty good student in everything. I was a good teacher because I was teaching myself too. I was knocking it into my own head,” stated Piscatella, who spent a lot of her tenure at Dominican Business Excessive College in Queens and Molloy Faculty in Rockville Middle, together with a number of New York Metropolis colleges.
These days, Piscatella enjoys deep prayer and reference to God whereas setting an instance that’s being adored by the Catholic group on Lengthy Island — lots of whom she celebrated turning 112 with.
“She accepts the will of God. Her whole life, I never heard her complain about anything,” Kammer stated.
“She had a brain bleed 11 years ago, and they thought she was never going to walk again and never going to talk again. She accepted it, and here she is walking and talking.”
Piscatella — stated she is joyful she “can still think” at her superior age.
“I could still teach, or at least I think so,” Piscatella stated.
