LA VOZ CATÓLICA PHOTOS BY ANGELIQUE RUHI-LOPEZ Mother Adela Galindo, founder of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, holds an image of pelicans, one of the symbols of the congregation.

Mother Adela Galindo is living proof that God’s call sometimes comes in unexpected ways.

What started, in her words, as “a tiny seed” — her desire to devote her life to the church — has germinated into the first congregation of women religious founded in the Archdiocese of Miami.

“Really, I never thought the Lord was calling me to start a religious community,” said Mother Galindo, founder of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

“When other sisters wanted to follow in my footsteps, we asked ourselves, ‘What are we?’ It was the church who told us what we were doing.”

Mother Galindo was praying in a Schoenstatt chapel during a missionary trip to the Dominican Republic in 1984 when she says she felt “an interior desire to consecrate myself to Mary.”

“I heard the Lord and the Blessed Mother saying, ‘Give me your fiat. You don’t have to know why, you don’t have to know for what,’” recalled Mother Galindo, who was born in Nicaragua and came to the United States in 1979.

“I knew I had to give them my life, and I made some private vows. Usually, you feel that and you join a congregation. I did not think it was a call to start a congregation,” said Mother Galindo, who has taken part in Marian movements and the charismatic renewal since she was 12.

LA VOZ CATÓLICA PHOTOS BY ANGELIQUE RUHI-LOPEZ Sister María José Socías reads in the garden of the convent of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

She said she had to adopt a Marian attitude of patience because her true calling took a while to reveal itself.

“We had a community of lay people and young women who were convinced they had to serve,” she said. “We put it in the hands of (retired Auxiliary) Bishop (Agustín Román), who told us, ‘Live. Once you start living it, you’ll know what to do.’”

		‘When other sisters wanted to follow in my footsteps, we asked ourselves, ‘What are we?’ Mother Adela Galindo, Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary

As a result, the young women decided to live in community while trying to discern their calling.

“In 1990, I remember that the (archdiocese’s) vicar for religious said something about the vocation to found (an order). It was a tremendous confirmation, and I heard it from the mouth of the church,” Mother Galindo said.

LA VOZ CATÓLICA PHOTOS BY ANGELIQUE RUHI-LOPEZ Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary take turns each day spending an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

CHOOSING A NAME

The women then had to choose a name that would reveal their order’s charism or mission.

“We knew it had to include the word ‘servants’ and we also wanted to express the desire to love to the extreme,” Mother Galindo said.

They thought of the fecundity of the pierced hearts of Jesus and Mary, which reminded them of the symbol of the pelican, “an image that the Lord had planted in my heart since 1985,” she explained.

“The pelican is large, and with his beak he takes blood from his breast and gives it to his children,” she said.

“It’s a Eucharistic symbol of Jesus, who gives life. He pierces himself in order to feed his children. I understood that was my call.

He was telling me, ‘Let me pierce your heart so that others might have life.’ The name was confirmed.”

	LA VOZ CATÓLICA PHOTOS BY ANGELIQUE RUHI-LOPEZ Sister Teresa Urioste and Sister Juana María Sanchez walk in the garden of one of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts’ Miami convents.

Currently, the congregation numbers 19 professed religious, 1 novice and 2 postulants living in four Miami convents. Some of the vocations have come from other states and countries, largely through the order’s Web site.

“The order began where the Lord wanted it to be,” Mother Galindo said.

“Right now, the order is just in Miami, but we have a lot of apostolates and associates here and in other countries — Latin America, the rest of the U.S. It’s going to happen. We’re just waiting for the green light. We have already expanded in so many ways.”

The Servants’ mission is to witness Christ’s love and life to the world.

“Our goal is to take the love of the ‘two hearts’ to all sectors of society,” Mother Galindo said.

“Our mission is to evangelize, to promote a culture of love and life. We go wherever the church needs us. What is important to the church becomes our center, our heart.”

		MEANING OF THE HABIT For Mother Adela Galindo, founder of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary, religious habits are a sign of consecration that proclaims “this person belongs to God.” For that reason, every element of the habit worn by the Servants has significance: • The white blouse signifies purity. • The apron on top signifies unconditional service and the spirit of a servant. • The apron’s color, taupe, is an earthen tone that serves as a reminder of the humility and meekness required for service. • The burgundy belt signifies obedience and sacrificial love. • The shoes are the same color, reminding the sisters to walk in humility, following Jesus wherever he might lead them, even to suffering. • The Servants wear a red cross bearing the symbol of the pelican and a pin with two hearts (Jesus and Mary) which they wear near their own hearts. • The rosary hanging from their belt encompasses 20 mysteries. Each Servant is assigned to pray one of the mysteries during the day, a reminder of her Marian path and her daily bond with her fellow Servants.

LA VOZ CATÓLICA PHOTOS BY ANGELIQUE RUHI-LOPEZ From left, Sister Veronica Jimenez, Mother Adela Galindo and Sister Ana Margarita Lanzas chat in the convent garden. The congregation was founded in 1990 in Miami.

NEW VOCATIONS
The goal of spreading the love of the ‘two hearts’ is what attracted Sister Silvia Tarafa to the order. She and Sister Delia Morales, the newest professed members of the community, made their vows this February.

“The Lord just starts putting a rumbling in your heart,” Sister Tarafa said. “It started in the year 2000 and it would continue. I would try to ignore it and it would come back. I used to think that the religious life was totally a drag. (I changed my mind) from getting close to the sisters for 13 years and seeing that they’re regular people. They’re normal and they laugh and they are funny people.”

Sister Tarafa said her life has changed since she made her vows.

“Being inside rather than on the outside is a million times more beautiful. The Lord is my husband now and he filled my heart. And he does that in the community. Not that everything is easy, as with everything, it has its ups and downs. He fills us and the biggest message is to trust him.”

		DAILY ROUTINE The Servants begin their day at 6:20 a.m. when the community gathers for prayer and Mass. Then they have breakfast and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Some sisters leave for work while others take turns praying one hour a day before the Blessed Sacrament. “We have sisters involved in catechesis, sisters who visit the sick. We work in the pro-life movement, in parish missions, with young people and apostolic movements, in essence wherever the church needs us,” said Mother Adela Galindo, the congregation’s founder. “We also do a lot with the means of communications, on radio stations in many countries of Latin America. Being in Miami puts us in a privileged position, because it’s a bridge. We have assigned ministries within the archdiocese and additional ones that we do.” At noon, the sisters who are home pray the rosary together. (Those who are working pray the rosary at 9 p.m.) At 5 p.m., they gather for evening prayer and dinner before continuing their work in various ministries. At 10 p.m., they end the day with community prayer, observing silence until the next day. For more information, go to www.corazones.org or www.piercedhearts.org.

Ruhi-Lopez writes for La Voz Católica, the monthly Spanish-language newspaper of the Archdiocese of Miami.