Religious invite women to consider consecrated life

Religious invite women to consider consecrated life
 Sister Rosalba Vargas, Mother Superior of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in San Francisco, speaks with Martha and Pedro García, founders of the Guadalupana Crusade, inside the monastery chapel Sept. 6 before the couple renewed their wedding vows.  (Photo by Lorena Rojas/San Francisco Católico)

December 13, 2019
Araceli Martínez
San Francisco Católico

Three nuns recently spoke with San Francisco Católico about their lives and invited women to embrace the opportunity to discern their vocation.
 
Sister Lucy García Muñiz
Sister Lucy García Muñiz from the Oblates of Jesus the Priest discovered her religious vocation at around age 15 while living in the town of Jesús María in San Luis Potosí, México.
 
“I’d see many religious women coming to the retreat houses in my hometown. My longing was born there. I wanted to be like them,” Sister Lucy said.
 
At 18 Sister Lucy was determined to go to the convent but her father became very ill with cancer and she had to postpone her plans.
 
“I decided to wait and stay around to help my mom. We were 12 in the family. My dad died when I was already 21 years old,” she said.
 
It was then that she joined the Oblates of Jesus the Priest in México City.
 
“At 26 I made my profession of religious vows. I was with different communities in México until they sent me to Rome, New York, and this year in June I arrived at St.  Patrick Seminary’s in Menlo Park,” she said.
 
The Oblates of Jesus the Priest main apostolate is prayer, specifically for priestly and seminary vocations.
 
The Eucharist is the center of their lives along with daily Eucharistic Adoration, the recitation of the rosary, the Liturgy of the Hours and Lectio Divina.
 
In the United States their communities are in San Francisco, Chicago and New York.
 
Their charism is to "love the priesthood of Christ and make it loved” and minister to carry out work that imitates the priesthood of Jesus.
 
"We accompany the seminarians throughout their preparation and ordination process as Mary did with Jesus," Sister Lucy said.
 
After 26 years of religious life, Sister Lucy confesses that she feels very fulfilled, happy and content with the ministry that God has given her.
 
“Ours is a daily oblation so that the church has more priests. There wouldn’t be any sacraments without them, no Eucharist,” she said.
 
Sister Lucy said that she has never regretted – not even for a second – having dedicated her life to Jesus: "When you consecrate yourself to God, he gives us gifts and gifts in abundance.”
 
While religious life means giving up everything it also makes it possible to create a family along the way.
 
“It is normal that at first, when we are not sure of our vocation, we can sometimes feel fear but what I can tell you is that it is worth giving our lives to Christ,” she said.
 
Moreover, she said, a person remains the same throughout a life devoted to Christ.
 
“We have moments of prayer, but we lead a very active life in which there is also time for coexistence, recreation and outings,” she said. “It is a normal life dedicated to Jesus.”
 
Sister Teresa García Jara
For the past 36 years Sister Teresa García Jara has been with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of St. Mary of Guadalupe, MSCGpe for its initials in Spanish.
 
According to the congregation’s website, “Misioneras del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús y de Santa María de Guadalupe” was founded in Jalisco, Mexico, in 1926 during the religious persecution that ensnared the entire country.
 
Sister Teresa was born in Durango, México, and at the age of 15 she felt God’s call.
 
“I had a neighbor who came to celebrate her 25 years of religious life. She and other nuns encouraged me and I wanted to go with them, but they asked me to finish high school,” she said.
 
When she was 20 and decided to enter the convent, her parents rejoiced. “They handed me over to God with much generosity,” she said.
 
Sister Teresa also recalled the warm welcome the nuns gave her and said that she has been “very happy with this vocation that God gave me.”
 
Sister Teresa explained that her congregation is dedicated to serve mainly in seminaries and priestly houses, but they also run schools, boarding schools for boys and girls of scarce resources, asylums and mission houses.
 
After making her perpetual vows she was sent to Washington, D.C., in 1990. She spent around eight years ministering to Marist priests and then headed to Rome for another eight years.
 
Shortly after “I returned to a seminary in Cuernavaca; and then again back to Washington; from there to Boston and I’ve been in San Francisco for almost six years, since 2013,” she said.
 
Sister Teresa said that a religious vocation is very beautiful.
 
“I have never regretted it,” she said. “I invite other women to discover God in their lives and listen in their hearts to his voice, to follow him. He needs people to love him.”
 
She revealed that when she decided to become a nun, she wanted to be a saint.
 
“I realize that it is very difficult but it is a process and a journey where there is much rejoicing and happiness. Being religious is a job to love God, in which we pray a lot for vocations,” she said.
 
Sister Alma Ruth Vargas
Originally from Michoacán, México, Sister Alma Ruth Vargas discovered her vocation one weekend when she accompanied one of her sisters to visit the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in San Francisco. Her sister was the one interested in religious life.
 
“It gave me great joy to see the nuns, how they lived and felt fulfilled. ‘It is worth trying,’ I said. Since then I have never doubted my vocation,” said Sister Alma Ruth.
 
She has been with the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in San Francisco for over 35 years and she is now the mistress of novices in charge of the novitiate.
 
The Sisters of Perpetual Adoration are a community that is dedicated day and night to worship the Lord. Unlike other orders, they lead a cloistered life and pray constantly. Their lives are spent between the convent, the chapel and the courtyards of the monastery in San Francisco.
 
Sister Alma Ruth has two more sisters who belong to the order of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration -- Rosalba, who is the Mother Superior and Betzabet.
 
She believes that the number of women and men who dedicate themselves to religious life has decreased for several reasons: technology, abandonment of family prayer and family disintegration.
 
“I invite young girls and women to give themselves an opportunity to consider devoting their lives to
Jesus,” she said.

“Have them stop for a moment and think what makes them happy. Why not choose religious life? Perhaps, if after being in the convent they realize that they are meant not for this vocation, whatever they learn will help them a lot in their marriage and in their lives.”