Sisters with the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary speak to SFX students about vocations in honor of Catholic Schools Week
Sisters Emma Rueda, Amanda Davis and Marie Elizabeth Miller of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary (SCTJM) spoke to Saint Francis Xavier (SFX) Catholic School students on Thursday about vocations.
Sister Emma assists with the Hispanic ministry in the SFX Parish Office and often interacts with the students at the school.
The SCTJM convent is located in Miami, Florida, and was founded by Mother Adela Galindo in 1990. Currently, the convent has 68 teachers and even began taking brothers in 2018.
Sister Amanda spoke about the significance of vocations in God’s ultimate plan.
“You hear about these big names in history,” she began. “You hear about maybe Napoleon or maybe a king or a queen in the past. You’ve heard about George Washington. History is changed by different people and each of us also plays a role in history. And it’s okay if our names never get written in the history book because you know who writes the most important history book? God.”
“So what’s more important is that we write our names in God’s history book so that we use our lives in the way that He needs us to use our lives,” Sister Amanda continued. “Maybe for some of you, that’s having a husband, having a family, having kids. Maybe for some of you, it’s - you young men - being priests, brothers. Ladies, maybe it’s [to be] a sister.”
Sister Amanda said her role in history was to become a sister, to say “yes” to Jesus’s call for her life.
“That yes includes also coming to St. Francis Xavier to tell you about the ‘Yes’ that I gave,” she added.
Sister Marie Elisabeth told students the story of how she determined God was calling her to take the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and total Marian identity that all SCTJM sisters take. She said she had a major misconception about religious life when she was young.
“I didn’t know I could be a sister,” she explained. “I thought you had to be born into the convent.”
Then she said she met some sisters of the SCTJM when she was in college. Her experience with them influenced her decision to devote her life to the same cause: Jesus Christ.
“When I met them, I saw their love and their joy,” she noted.
It takes three years to become a SCTJM sister. Once sisters take their vows, they go out on missions.
Sister Marie Elizabeth said they also pray a lot.
“Our life is rooted in prayer,” she explained. “We sometimes pray together and sometimes we pray just us and Jesus … We pray, but also serve.”
SFX students in kindergarten and up got to listen to the three sisters talk in the Parish Hall, beginning with middle school, followed by kindergarten through second grade and then third through fifth grade.
The younger children sang and performed a special dance taught to them by the sisters.
Meanwhile, all SFX students were dressed in green and white for John Carroll Catholic High School (JCCHS) Spirit Day, which is part of Catholic Schools Week (CSW). SFX middle schoolers typically attend JCCHS upon graduation.
St. Francis Xavier Catholic School is an accredited classical Catholic PreK-8 school in Birmingham’s Crestline neighborhood that uses the time-tested Catholic Intellectual Tradition to form students in virtue through the pursuit of academic excellence and service toward God and neighbor.
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