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I am Sister Rosa de Guadalupe.

 

When I was thirteen, I was praying before an image of the Sacred Heart.  There I began to discover that our Lord was secretly preparing me to be consecrated to Him one day.

Every time I attended church, I would go to the image of the Sacred Heart to pray.  When I prayed there, I would feel something inside that I could not understand.  It was like a longing for something.  It was something I did not understand.  With time I discovered little by little that the Lord was preparing me for something the He in his great love and mercy had planned for me.

Whenever I would see the nuns in charge of the college, I would feel great joy.  I would say to myself that I wanted to Christ's spouse too.  So the love for religious missionary life began to grow in my heart.  I wanted to be a missionary nun with all my heart.  I asked my family for permission to join them.  It was denied. Now I thank God that it happened that way.  He had other plans for me.  The truth was that God did not want me to be a religious missionary.

Time passed and so did my ideas of the missionary life, but there still was the call to something.  Interiorly, deep in my heart, I tried to discover what the Lord wanted from me.

During this time I had the opportunity of being around and sharing with young adults.  I joined the group, Catholics in Action. I felt very good in the youth group.  I tried to serve and please the Lord through the group, but there were times when I felt that something was missing.  Nothing seemed to fill the emptiness I felt inside me. I tried distracting myself through sports which I enjoyed very much.  I played volleyball, basketball and soccer.  I enjoyed attending celebrations and parties and I always had a lot of friends.  But I soon learned that all these things end, sooner or later.  No matter how enjoyable it seems, the day will come when it will all end and nothing will be left.

Only God's love is eternal.  I wanted to fill the emptiness within me with worldly and material things.  The one who finally my emptiness was Jesus.

Now I am happy.  And even though I did not become a religious missionary, I am happy because I accepted God's holy will and became a contemplative Capuchin Poor Clare nun.