By Jim Davis - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | South Florida's own religious order plans a simple little 25th anniversary celebration this weekend — with a half-dozen bishops from other states and other countries.

It's a measure of the reach and success of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Also a measure of their vigor: At a time when other orders are aging, the average age of the Servants is 27.

Mother Adela Galindo, founder of the order, views the anniversary with a blend of thanks and surprise that so much has happened so fast. "I'm extremely grateful for what the Lord has done," she says.  "We could never do it by ourselves. But the Lord blesses when you respond. Like Our Lady said, 'Let it be done.'"

The anniversary celebration will be a Mass at 11 a.m. Aug. 15 at St. Mary Cathedral. Celebrating along with Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Auxiliary Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Miami will be retired Archbishop Emeritus John C. Favalora and Bishop Fernando Isern, formerly of the Diocese of Pueblo.

Coming from out of town will be other leaders with whom the Servants work closely: Bishop Daniel Robert Jenky of the Diocese of Peoria, Ill.; Auxiliary Bishop Manuel Aurelio Cruz of Newark; Bishop Jaime Fuentes of Minas, Uruguay; and Archbishop Santo Marciano of Italy's Military Ordinariate in Rome. Priests and sisters from those areas will attend as well.

Also at the Mass will be the order's lay associates, who number about 250 in the Miami archdiocese. Others are expected to come from Orlando, Italy and Central and Latin America.

What would Mary do?

Unlike many other religious orders, the Servants don’t focus on a specialized charism, like building hospitals or feeding the poor. Instead, they take a Marian approach, working intimately with schools and dioceses — teaching, leading, praying, counseling, all in a motherly sense of providing for the Church.

"We ask: How would Our Lady do something?" said Sister Ana Margarita Lanzas, the order's vicar general, in an interview at the convent a few blocks from Calle Ocho. "How would she speak or think, or do a ministry? She would do it with kindness. She would be loving and motherly."

In the Archdiocese of Miami, where the group was founded in 1990, some of the 43 Servants can be seen teaching catechism at various parishes, like St. Raymond in Miami and Blessed Trinity in Miami Springs. One is the principal of St. Mary Cathedral School. Another is a chaplain at Mercy Hospital, Miami. And Sister Ana is director of religious for the archdiocese, serving as liaison for the 71 orders in South Florida.

The Servants have gained attention for their annual Two Hearts Vigil, an all-night devotion they’ve held since 1996. They also hold Eucharistic cenacles every Friday, rotating among four parishes: St. Brendan, St. Raymond, St. Agnes and St. Augustine. They give talks to parish groups, like Emmaus retreats or young adults. And some play in a rhythm section for the archdiocese's annual Focus 11 vocational awareness rallies.

Elsewhere, the sisters work in Orlando, especially at Annunciation Parish in Altamonte Springs, where they assist Father Stephen D. Parkes at the parish office and school. One runs the Newman Center at Illinois State University. In Italy, they work at two parishes of the Military Ordinariate. They are also active in Central and South America. 

In several locales, the sisters hold retreats and conferences for seminarians. They serve on diocesan liturgical commissions and commissions for religious life.

The Servants also have lay associates in a half-dozen U.S. states and more than 14 countries. Rather than vows, they make various "commitments," such as daily prayer and Mass as often as possible. They also minister in their local parishes and movements.

 A life of sacrifice 

Walk up to the Servants' motherhouse, and you'll see two pelicans carved into the double doors. It's the emblem of the order because of an ancient belief that in times of famine, a mother pelican plucks at her own bosom until blood flows. That kind of sacrifice prompted the sisters to call their work "the vocation of the pelican."

The phrase is usually metaphorical, but four sisters recently came close to making it literal. On an airliner, they heard an announcement that the flight was overbooked and didn't have enough meals for everyone.

"The four of us told the flight attendants, 'Don’t worry about us, give the food to somebody else,'" Mother Adela recalled. "Their faces were amazed."

It was in the Dominican Republic, on a mission along with a youth group from Immaculate Conception Church in Hialeah, that Mother Adela first sensed her call, she said. At the Shrine of Our Lady of Schoenstatt near Santo Domingo, she heard a divine request in 1985: "Let me pierce your heart so others may have life."

Only gradually did she grasp the meaning. "For me, it meant a vocation of self-donation and love, so that others may have life. He needed my yes for something that would give life to others."

It clicked into place, and she made a private vow to God. Back in Miami a few weeks later, two other young women made their own vows as well.

Shortly thereafter, she met Sister Ana, who had been searching for an order to join. The two talked for three or four hours, as Sister Ana pretty much "told her the story of my life," she said.

Then she started to leave, and Mother Adela said, 'Where are you going? Stay, we have a prayer group tonight." From then on, Sister Ana was her "shadow," she said.

The group moved in together and evolved rules and a schedule: prayer times, Mass, work, dinner and studying together. Their conservative dress and frugal ways began to attract notice, including from the archdiocese.

Finally, Mother Adela had a meeting with then Archbishop Edward McCarthy, who approved formation of a new religious order. In 2000 his successor, Archbishop Favalora, declared the Servants a Religious Institute of Diocesan Right.

Rigorous entry process

But the Servants don’t make it easy to enter; their extended formation process can take six years. Nine women are at various stages, even a pre-postulancy. Still others are in a discernment period, learning about the religious life and how to listen to God. It can be a long road, but the retention rate is 95 percent, Sister Ana said.

For Sister Emma Rueda, it was "love at first sight" when she met some of the sisters. During October 1998, she had been feeling a call to the religious life, but didn't know any religious community in Miami.

After praying about it, she attended a charismatic renewal conference in Miami. That's where she met the Servants and heard a talk by Mother Adela.

"I felt like I knew her all my life," Sister Emma said. "And it wasn't something strange. I think it was God's plan. When you’ve found a place where you can grow, you feel at home."

She now works as a religious teacher for the middle school at Blessed Trinity Church in Miami Springs, along with another Servant, Sister Delia Morales. "It's very humbling to think of God calling me to be part of this," Sister Emma said.

Embrace of modern communications is one mark of the Servants. They use TV and run their own websites, including piercedhearts.org, with an aggregated list of church news and documents. They run web-based radio called Cor Ecclesiae. And they make CDs and DVDs of all their talks, plus online archives.

Their media savvy drew Sister Elena Castillo when she was a 16-year-old in her native Nicaragua. Watching TV, she was startled to see an interview with Mother Adela.

Her first reaction: "Wow, a nun on TV?" Then, as she heard Mother Adela talking about the order's charism, "I felt that I needed to go to that community. I felt that it was my place."

She read about the Servants on their website, then visited the group in Miami. She joined when she turned 18 — and now runs the website, along with directing religious education at St. Raymond.

Sister Elena also found out in April how the Servants care for one another. That's when she began to suffer headaches and bleeding. At a hospital in Coral Gables, she was diagnosed with "aggressive leukemia," and a doctor said she had only hours to live, she said.

She was sent to the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System, and put on chemotherapy. One of the sisters prayed with her night and day.

"It was a beautiful testimony for the hospital," Sister Elena said. "All the nurses saw the love of the community, and they asked for prayer."

After five weeks, despite the early dire prognosis, she was released. Although she is continuing treatment, she says she has felt no side effects like swelling or loss of hair.

"Prayer is the best chemotherapy," Sister Elena said with a smile.

Growing pains

As a young order, the Servants are still experiencing growing pains. Mother Adela has visited more than 20 countries thus far this year, and the sisters have been invited into 20 other dioceses. It all brings a variety of challenges: social, cultural, economic, even linguistic.

"When you start someplace, you learn a new culture and work with people you’ve never known," she said. "It's another world into which we go and accept responsibility."

But even the travel presents opportunities to minister, she noted. Other passengers often offer comments like, "Thank you for what you do," even if they don't know the order.

"Giving your life for service, I think, strikes a lot of people," Mother Adela said.

Yet one question remains a mystery: How have the Servants grown and thrived when others have not? In the period from 2000 to 2014, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, members of religious orders of women in the United States dwindled from 79,814 to 49,883. How are the Servants different?

Mother Adela says she doesn't worry about that. "It's not like a business; there is no strategy. I never think of others. I just think about being faithful to what the Lord has asked me.

"I don’t even feel we're that successful," she added. "That's not the way you measure a community. You measure it by how the sisters love the Lord and the institute, and the Church, and humanity."

Correction: The proper status of the Servants in the Catholic Church is a Religious Institute of Diocesan Right. The term was misstated as "rite" in the original story.