Sr. Virginia Jiménez, S.H.M.
I was raised in a Catholic family, in which I learned to love God. Ever since I was little, I experienced a special sensibility towards other people’s sufferings. It has marked my response to follow God’s will.
I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I was deeply moved by the television documentaries which showed the children in Africa, whom I saw totally malnourished and eaten alive by the flies. I didn’t understand why they had to suffer in that way, and with tears in my eyes I interiorly decided that I would do something to help them. I would go to them, even if all I could do was tell them that I loved them. This idea is what led me to study something which would allow me to help and be useful to others, to ease their pain as much as I could…and when the time came to choose a major, I decided to study Psychology.
When I was about 14 years old I joined my parish choir and it was there that I first met the Home. There was a girl in the choir who was a member of the Home and she would invite me to participate in the different activities throughout the year.
In 1990, I went to a summer camp with the Home and I loved it. The environment was wonderful. Everyone was so welcoming and their joy was enormous. What impressed me the most was that they loved you just as you were - you didn’
t have to pretend, or try to please everyone, and it was a love in God that I had never experienced before.
Even though I had prayed and gone to Mass every Sunday since I was little my encounter with the Home in 1990 is what led me to begin a life of true prayer. Each day I grew closer to Our Lord and Our Mother. I went from praying 5 minutes each day, looking at my watch every two seconds to see how much time I had left, to praying for 30 mintues each day and going to daily Mass. The Lord had seized my heart.
Each year I participated in more activities (pilgrimages, Holy Week Encounters, get-togethers…) and I never missed the summer camps where I grew in human and Christian virtues. The memories of so many sacrifices, efforts, and selflessness to this day fill me with joy.
At the summer camp in 1993, when I was 19 years old, they spoke a great deal about vocations. They spoke of the universal call to holiness and the importance of discovering the personal vocation God had planned for each of us. During prayer time I remember asking the Lord what He wanted of me. When I thought about the married life, I felt nothing special, but when I thought about the possibility of the consecrated life, I experienced interior joy. During the summer camp I had been thinking about it a lot. One day in a small house where the Lord was present in the Blessed Sacrament, I went before Him and was surprised to find myself saying, “the only thing holding you back are your parents.” I knew the Lord 
wanted me to be a Servant Sister and in order to take that step I had to be willing to leave behind the things that filled my heart the most during that time: my family, my studies (I was about to begin my third year studying Psychology), all the good activities I participated in…the world I had created for myself and in which I felt secure.
I have never stood out in generosity, and I took 2 years to respond to this calling, having turned back on two occasions. So many attachments!! How much harm they can cause!! God is so merciful!!
Thanks to the Sacrament of Confirmation (which I received when I was 21 years old), to the brave response of other young people to follow God’s call, which forced me to ask myself: “what are you doing?”, “what are you waiting for?”, and thanks to the prayers of others, I was finally able to say YES!! I entered as a postulant on September 14, 1995 in Priego (Cuenca).
As of September 2010, I’ve been living the consecrated life for 15 years, and I am very happy. I look back and all I can do is infinitely thank God for His patience. I thank Him for continuously sustaining me upon this path, in spite of my failings, my cowardliness, my wanting to let go of the cross…God is never outdone in generosity, and I experience this everyday, although I don’t deserve it.
I’ve spent 5 years now in missions, in Ecuador. Although they aren’t the children in Africa I saw on television, they are children, young people and adults that suffer, not so much for lack of food but for love of God. “Man does not live on bread alone, but upon every word that comes from God’s mouth.” It is the missionary who is filled with God who satisfies the hunger for God.
Pray that I may always be a docile instrument in the hands of Him who called me and who will complete the work He has begun.
