As Missionaries of Charity they are called to look into the faces of the poorest of the poor, pray with them and feed them, body and soul.

Four members of this international family of women religious came nearly two years ago from different nations a world away to open a mission in the Sacramento Diocese.

Since their arrival at the invitation of Bishop William K. Weigand in June 2005, the Missionaries of Charity have made their home in the former rectory of St. Peter Church in south Sacramento.

Sister Damascene Anthony, originally from India, serves as the local superior.

Other members of the local community include Sister Christopher Chacon, a native of Colombia, Sister Paulinetta Chambugong, born and raised in Bangladesh, and Sister Aurelia Fabiano, a native of Tanzania in East Africa, who arrived eight months ago.

Sister Aurelia replaces Sister Jose Clare, who has returned to Calcutta in preparation for final vows.

“Their presence means a lot for our churches,” said Father Ambrose Ugwuegbu, parochial vicar of St. Peter and All Hallows parishes in Sacramento.

Father Ugwuegbu said the Missionaries of Charity attend daily Mass at St. Peter, where they often serve as lectors, and he frequently celebrates Mass with them in the rectory’s chapel.

“They pray often and their prayers make a lot of difference in our lives,” he said. “They have their eyes open to those who are bereaved and alone and do things that keep parishes alive.”

The nuns begin their day at 4:40 a.m. Each day includes four hours of prayer, Mass, spiritual reading, private prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Their pastoral work schedule is rigorous, starting with providing religious education instruction in English and Spanish to children at St. Peter and All Hallows churches and at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, all in Sacramento.

The Missionaries of Charity also are catechists for children and teens participating in the Moral Values Program, a learning center in south Sacramento mentoring at-risk teens.

“They bring their love and compassion for God here,” said Frank Victorio, who co-founded the program with his wife Monica.

“The sisters are very powerful. Their overall presence calms the kids down,” he said. “For them to show up here is really a miracle.”

The sisters also make weekly trips to downtown Sacramento neighborhoods adjacent to and including Cesar Chavez Park, where they stop to talk and pray with men and women who are often hungry.

So once a week the Missionaries of Charity prepare plates of pasta, rice and vegetables at home, delivering it fresh from the kitchen.

“When people open the plate,” Sister Anthony said, “steam is still coming out.”

But to satisfy the real hunger among many of the homeless, she added, is the heart of the mission.

“There is primarily material poverty in India, but here it is not as much material poverty as spiritual poverty,” she said. “It may be people are not all right mentally. There are people to help them find a job, but they are not capable to do that. It is tough.”

During the formation process with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, Sister Anthony walked through streets where people lived in cardboard houses, caring at times for orphans and for the elderly, outcasts dying alone.

She came to know Missionaries of Charity founder, Blessed Mother Teresa, who was present when she took her first vows and later final vows in 1987.

“For me, I know she had a very tender love for every sister,” Sister Anthony said.

Born into a family of eight children in the city of Trichur in southern India, Sister Anthony decided in her late teens she wanted to be a woman religious.

It is a vocation, she said, selected by one family member in just about every household on the block.

She sent off several letters of inquiry to religious communities, and received favorable responses from four, including the Missionaries of Charity.

“I had no idea which one to choose so I prayed and the Holy Spirit did it for me,” Sister Anthony said.

Another piece of Sister Anthony’s ministry today pairs her with Sister Chambugong, making pastoral visits to Folsom State Prison in Sacramento.

“When we visit prison we are visiting Jesus,” said Sister Chambugong, referencing biblical verses in Matthew 25, in which feeding and clothing the hungry, visiting the sick and the imprisoned demonstrate love for Christ.

Sister Chambugong relates to those passages from Scripture in a very personal way.

In 1971 when she was just 10 years old, famine in Bangladesh brought on by torrential rains destroyed farmers’ crops, including those of Sister Chambugong’s father, who had 10 children to feed.

Taught by Holy Cross Sisters, Sister Chambugong “answered God’s call” to become a woman religious that came when she was in third grade. She chose the Missionaries of Charity.

“I wanted a ministry to the poor,” Sister Chambugong said, “and to live for Jesus.”

Other Missionaries of Charity ministries include pastoral visits to neighborhood families, to two group homes for girls — both programs of St. Patrick’s Home For Children — and to a nursing home for the elderly.

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