By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Homily by Archbishop Thomas Wenski on the 40th anniversary of Mother Adela's consecration on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Parish, in Doral, FL on August 15, 2025.
Today, the Church celebrates Mary's entry into heaven. And it was on this day, 40 years ago in 1985, on the Solemnity of the Assumption that the story of the Pierced Hearts began when Mother Adela was on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic with other young people from her parish, Immaculate Conception, in Hialeah. At a Marian shrine in the DR at the conclusion of this mission trip, this 23-year-old young woman experienced a strong movement in her heart to consecrate herself to the Lord in a private way.
After returning to Miami, she continued meeting weekly with the young adult group that had gone on the mission trip, and, to her surprise, two of the young women who had participated in the mission approached Mother and shared with her that they, too, would like to offer their lives to the Lord as she had. Then a third young woman joined them. With simplicity, Mother answered, “But I have nothing to offer you. I myself need to discover where it is that God is leading me.”
And these three women answered, “We only want to follow you, to do what you are doing, and to obey your instructions because we believe that the Lord is working in you and through you.”
The rest they say is history.
Mother Adela and the others began to live together in a simple one car garage efficiency. They kept their day jobs, pooling their resources, all the while convinced they were doing God’s will.
Those original Sisters will tell you that those were the most beautiful days of their lives. They lived there for five years. They only had two beds to sleep on, so they would take turns sleeping on the floor. In these years, they worked arduously saving money for “the future” that in faith they understood was to come.
This is a “future” that is still unfolding as it continues to be built.
Archbishop Edward McCarthy established a commission to study the case of the Sisters (at that time, a fledgling household of four young, consecrated women). He was in no hurry to approve and so after five years of studying and observing them, in 1990, he approved them as a Public Association of the Faithful in view of becoming a Religious Institute of Diocesan Right. The Archbishop recognized the validity of this work of God, a new Marian Charism for the good of the Church.
With the Church’s approval, the community would continue to grow, and more young women began to join them and their way of life. In the years that followed, charisma continued to develop, and Mother continued to write all that the Lord was doing in her and through the community. In the year 2000, Archbishop John Clement Favalora formally erected the community as a Religious Institute of Diocesan Right.
In 1999, Mother Adela founded the Apostles of the Pierced Hearts, the lay associates, who are now present in many countries around the world (many of them present here). At the same time, she founded the universal movement comprised of those who would be nurtured by the spiritualty and share in the initiatives of the charism.
When I became the Archbishop of Miami, I came to know Mother and her community more closely. Mother shared with me that she had received the call to found the male branch of religious brothers and priests, and on August 22, 2020, I approved their statutes and recognized the male branch as a Public Association of Religious Brothers and Priests in view of becoming a Diocesan Religious Institute.
Forty years ago, on this Marian feast day, what was to become the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary came to be through Mother Adela’s “fiat” to the Lord.
It was fitting that the Lord gave Mother Adela this inspiration on the feast of the Assumption. For the Assumption not only tells us something about Mary: that she is in heaven; it also tells us something about ourselves and our ultimate destiny as creatures created in the image and likeness of God. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin “anchors” our hope, indeed our conviction, that God created the human race for more than just to die one day. As we learned in the catechism of our youth, “God has made us to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life and to be with Him in the next.” Like Mary, each one of us is created in the image and likeness of God; and, like Mary, each one of us is called to a future of hope, realized in the vision of God in heaven.
Through her Assumption into heaven, Mary already participates in that future of hope to which we as a pilgrim people aspire thanks to the grace of baptism which has made us children of God and heirs to the promises of Christ. Thus, Mary’s assumption, body and soul into heaven, stands as a counterpoint to the secularism of our age, while at the same time, reassures us through the various trials that we may undergo in this world that is sometimes described as a "vale of tears" that God does, in fact, keep his promises.
It is a joy for us in the Church of the United States and many other countries to see what the Lord has done with a simple “yes” of a twenty-three-year-old young woman. Forty years have passed. Look what the Lord has done. The Lord only needs us to be open, faithful, and to respond with generosity to his invitation to do the work which he desires to accomplish for the good of the Church and many souls.
