Maryknoll sisters in California open home for 'Secret Santa' TV movie

Published: 2003-11-24

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A group of Maryknoll sisters in the Los Angeles suburbs will have part of their home on display before millions of television viewers who tune in to the NBC made-for-TV movie "Secret Santa." Maryknoll Sister Margaret Lyons, who helped arrange for the movie crew to film at their complex for a week, said the movie's message reflects what the sisters themselves do: "It's doing for others. That's what secret Santa was doing. He was doing for others." In addition to filming at the Maryknoll complex in Monrovia, Calif., six of the eight sisters in residence got bit parts in the movie. Of the five buildings in the complex, purchased by Maryknoll in 1950 as a tuberculosis hospital for Japanese sufferers of the disease, most of the shooting was done in one building to portray a rest home. In the movie, an Indianapolis newspaper reporter played by Jennie Garth ("Beverly Hills, 90210") is assigned to report on the phenomenon of a small Indiana town's secret Santa. With no room at the inn in town, Garth's character stays nights at the town rest home while she spends her days trying to solve the mystery.

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