With the joy that characterizes this Easter season, on 25 April, we celebrate the 58th World Day of Prayer for Vocations. In our fraternities, this initiative of the Church continues throughout the whole year but on this day, the ecclesial communion unites us and reminds us, through Pope Francis’ invitation and message, that we all have the responsibility to announce, care for, invite and collaborate in the task of the Pastoral for Vocation and the Youth.
My name is Sandra Milena Velásquez Bedoya; with a special pleasure I like to share my experience as a vocational companion and promoter during 8 years. I commemorate this day being certain that each Christian is, in himself, a God’s letter to the world and I am aware that we should put all our faculties and abilities at Christ’s disposal so that we could exclaim “I have died, but Christ lives in me” (cf. Gal 2, 20); that is why I am deeply grateful for how this service has contributed to strength my option of life as a Capuchin Tertiary Sister.
Pastoral for Vocation and the Youth has been for me a school of life and has offered me the opportunity to grow in humanity and to deepen into the reasons of my call. If someone would ask me what did motivate me to carry on this service, I would say not only that it was the obedience that, through my superiors, sent me to carry it on, but I would also add that I am motivated by the deep desire that many young people might be as happy as I am.
When, in our fraternity, we pray to the Lord to send many good vocations to our Congregation, I always internally think that it doesn’t matter anymore the “number” and I am sure that when we welcome a person coming to us, either to stay or simply to discover before God her place in the world, we are already fulfilling our task and a sharing our gift.
If they asked me, what would I thank to the young women I have accompanied, I would undoubtedly say that, in this service, their confidence is the greatest gift they give to me, as well as my great responsibility to guard it with loyalty and respect. I value the story that, with a deep faith and generosity, they put into my hands and that is what I have most loved in this service: the good present within each person and the novelty and distinction she brings through her unique and genuine experience of faith.
In the early stages of formation, I deeply enjoy listening to young people speaking about their experience of God, their young first love, to which many of us are invited to return. In the young women, at the beginning of their process of discernment, there is so a great authenticity and I often regret that time is transforming this experience in something uniform and common.
This is a service that does not require only dynamism, creativity or technological skills and neither being at the forefront of today’s youth. It is true that a little of all that is required, but even more are needed wisdom, understanding and unconditional love in the art of welcoming each young person without prejudice or labels that block the possibility of a healthy, affective and effective bond that will allow them to advance in their process of discernment with freedom and conscience.
One day, evoking my own path of vocational discernment, I remembered something that my father told me. First of all, I should say that for some time, he took position against my vocational option – because I am his only daughter – but when he knew more about our lifestyle he valued it a lot. Well, on one occasion my father told me: “Sandra, I think you should make vocational videos through which the young people can really see how your life is and show them to their parents, lest they be not like me. When you told me that you wanted to be a religious I made you suffering a lot because I had a very different idea of that lifestyle”.
On that day I realized that religious life had remained quite hidden to people and it needed to open its doors; therefore, together with the sisters of team of the Pastoral Vocation and the Youth of my Province, we created a weekly program called: «We, the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters, open to you the doors of our fraternities”. It is this a simple space, which every Saturday afternoon, gather many of our fraternities, young people and other persons met in our evangelizing mission and, through these videos, they express their closeness to and love for the Congregation.
As Capuchin Tertiary Sisters we have been able to respond to the concerns of young people, to make ourselves known simply and “without filters”, to get back the stories of our works and of our own vocations. Above all, we dedicate time to them, just as Pope Francis encourages us to do in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Christus Vivit” (cf. no. 199). Therefore, whenever we open the door of a new fraternity, once again we experiment the joy of being sisters of all, with our doors open and ready to welcome people passing through them or willing to remain with us; each young person that comes to us, grasps something of our Charisma, keeps it and propagates it so our Amigonian heart gets fill of names, presences and memories.
Finally, I like to thank because this space, belonging to us, has offered me the chance to share my personal experience and I am grateful also for the love through which the sisters support me in the mission entrusted to me. The Lord continues calling and attracting the young hearts and, together with them, we’ll get an extraordinary novelty that is a promise for our Congregation. Because of that, with hope and confidence, let us pass the “baton” allowing them to continue the race on the track we already covered. Certainly, on these tracks there are some indelible traces of many sisters who spent themselves doing well; I will personally say that the footprints along the way, offer a lot of confidence but also demands much responsibility.
Let us feel blessed with all the young women who, attracted by the Lord, his project and our particular way of life in the Church, come to our Congregation.
SANDRA MILENA VELÁSQUEZ BEDOYA, TC