|
|
|
|
|
 |
by Sr. Sharon Anne Legere, FSP Celebrating 41 years of religious life, Sr. Mary Guadalupe Martinez sees herself as a gardener for the Lord. Sr. Guadalupe was one of 12 children. Her close-knit family worked as migrants. Sr. Guadalupe and her brothers and sisters attended Catholic school from January to mid-May each year and then worked in the fields. When she graduated from the 8th grade, Sr. Guadalupe continued her life as a migrant farm worker. One day she read an ad for the Daughters of St. Paul in the Catholic Home Messenger, published by the Society of St. Paul. She had never thought of being a Sister before that, but something about the ad stimulated an interest and she wrote to the Sisters, "just to find out what would happen." Two weeks later, two of the Sisters came to visit her, and the mystery of her vocation unfolded. She says of that time, "No matter how much it would hurt to make the detachment from my family, I was convinced that with God I couldn’t go wrong, so I made my choice in faith." She has spent over eight years in various convents of the Daughters of St. Paul, dedicated to diffusion of the Word of God through personal contact and her work in various Pauline Book & Media Centers. For 25 years Sr. Guadalupe worked in the bindery at the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul. For many of those years, whenever a new postulant joined the community, she was sent first to the bindery to work side by side with Sr. Guadalupe. Once the young woman had adjusted to her new life, Mother Paula and Sr. Guadalupe would consult with one another to see in what aspect of the media apostolate she could best use her talents. Sr. Guadalupe said, "I wanted Mother Paula to know that the bindery was like a garden where the seeds get planted. And once they start to sprout, they need to be transplanted into a new space." Now Sr. Guadalupe dedicates her time to the spiritual and physical needs of our senior Sisters. She says: "Now that I work with the senior Sisters, I feel it is really an honor because I’ve known them since I entered the convent and have worked side by side with them all the time. I am inspired by their perseverance and their spirit of sacrifice and their zeal—they don’t lose a minute of time. I feel privileged to be with them because now they are preparing themselves for that celestial garden—paradise. I am blessed by them as I help them to pray while they work. I say what Mother Paula used to always say, ‘If I had a hundred lives I would make the same choice—to be a spouse of Christ and to work in our wonderful mission of evangelization with the media.’"
|
