How I met the Home
Conchi Garcia del Pino
I was born in Ocaña, a town in Toledo, Spain. I am the fourth of nine brothers and sisters. My parents are wonderful people. They brought us up in the faith and in love and fear of God.
As a teenager and youth I went through my phase of spiritual crisis. Interiorly I lived very far from God because I had mortal sins weighing on my conscience. I wasn’t happy with this situation and I wanted to change, to be different, because I was very sad inside. I used to cry alone at night, even though externally I gave the opposite impression.
I wanted to be good, I wanted to help others, but I was ashamed to go to Confession and this made things difficult.
When I was seventeen I succeeded in confessing. After the confession I told the Lord that from then on I promised not to fall into mortal sin again and
always to do what pleases Him; that I had already spent enough time away from Him and that I didn’t want to be unhappy any more.
That year I began my final year of studies. I was never too great at the studies but in the end I managed to pass everything. I had decided to study Psychology, to be able to help other young people and children, in Salamanca because I wanted to leave my home town. I felt the need to be different, to be someone.
Everything was ready: they had arranged a grant for me to study in Salamanca, and I had been there with my cousin to look for a residence. All I needed now was to pass my final exam, and I failed it!
That’s when the Lord “upset my plans”. How much I cried during those days! I had to spend another entire year in my town, losing the possibility of the grant. But... providentially, at the beginning of the school year my uncle (Sr. Reme’s father) moved to Barcelona for work reasons. My cousin was still finishing High School and didn’t want to leave her school in Toledo. We talked things over and asked our parents to let me go to Toledo to live with my cousin. So, while she finished her High School studies, I could go to class with her and this would help me to prepare for repeating my final exams.
They agreed to our wishes and so my cousin (Sr. Reme) and I lived together in Toledo that school year 1981 - 1982.
Fr. Rafael at that time was chair-holder of History in the School where my cousin was studying. She already knew him from elsewhere and used to attend the meetings he organised with young people. I began to get to know Fr. Rafael and Mamie.
We had begun to lead a spiritual life: we spent time in prayer in the mornings and in the afternoons attended the Mass that Father used to celebrate. Then we used to go with him to his house to spend some time with Mamie. When Father began to celebrate Mass in the mornings in the chapel of San Anton, beside the School, sometimes after Mass we used to go for breakfast with Mamie.
That year we became the shadows of Mamie and Fr. Rafael. We were always with them and accompanied them on all their travels.
Also, during this year, Father spoke to us about making a commitment to begin a serious group of young people with a prayer life and an apostolic commitment. We said yes to everything. We organised a pilgrimage for girls to Rome, in the month of July. During this pilgrimage, Father, before we got to Rome, in Lourdes, spoke to a small group of fourteen girls about the possibility of commencing the group and making a commitment. Of those girls six of us responded affirmatively and on the 29th of July 1982, before the tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican, we made our first commitments in the Home. Thus the Home of the Mother of the Youth was born.
I really felt like a “duck in the water”, truly happy. I had found my place, I really felt consecrated to God and to Our Blessed Mother and I wanted to dedicate my whole life to Them in the Home. The Home was my vocation, although I hadn’t yet discovered my vocation to be a Servant Sister. I was to discover this two years later, after praying very much to the Lord to show me what my place was within the Home.
© HM Magazine #118 - May/June 2004
