In letter number 38, the Superior General, Graciela Francoviginformed us that three junior sisters from the Dominican Republic had arrived and were professed this year at the International Juniorate in Grenada .
They are: Madelyn Núñes, Gabriela Núñez and Isairis del Carmen Valerio..
Madelyn is 25 years old and is from Santiago de los Caballeros, a graduate of two centers of the Daughters of Jesus in this city. She is the eldest of three sisters and a nursing technician.
Isairis del Carmen is 25 years old and is also from Santiago de los Caballeros. She studied at the Instituto Politécnico Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes and it was in her last years of school when the question about What do I want to live? How do I want to live? It led her to consider religious life. And, although the answers continue to define and show themselves to her with different nuances in her daily life, she can say that the common thread of each new discovery is Jesus, when it has been her turn to take steps on this path of wanting to be a Daughter of Jesus, the essential is discernment, accompaniment and the desire to follow Him, which has led her to make decisions and to feel deeply joyful.
Gabriela is 27 years old and is from Santiago de los Caballeros. She is a graduate of the Instituto Politécnico Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a school of the Daughters of Jesus, with a technical bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a university degree in Industrial Engineering.
The Juniorate is the time of formation after the novitiate that begins with the taking of the temporary vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. It is an important stage in the itinerary of those who wish to join the Congregation. It will last about six years and its main purpose is to help the juniors to continue to learn and grow in their vocation until they are definitively incorporated into the Congregation through perpetual vows and to prepare themselves through study and experience to better serve in mission.
What do you expect from this new stage?
Madelyn begins this new stage with enthusiasm.
In the midst of personal and geographical challenges, since I come from the novitiate in Argentina, a few months in the Dominican Republic and now in Spain, three very different cultures and rich in their own expressions and at the ecclesial and congregational level. During these first years we will be dedicated to the study of theology and English, all in order to be instruments of greater evangelization and help the sisters wherever the Congregation may send us in the future.
Isairis is in the process of adaptation.
But I can say that I loved Granada, it is a very beautiful and luminous city. We visited the Faculty of Theology and I liked it very much, I am excited to start my studies there. Also, I feel welcomed and belong to the Juniorate Community.
Gabriela hopes that this stage of the Juniorate will be a space to learn and continue with the formation for religious life.
To deepen my vocationfrom what I will be studying and in the experiences that I will have to live. I feel very encouraged, confident with the sisters with whom I share community and very happy for what is to come.
At this stage they will begin their bachelor’s studies in theology at the Faculty of the Carthusian monastery of Loyola University. From this stage they hope to obtain more knowledge that will allow them to know Jesus better and to follow him more closely in order to go and announce that he is the source of our charism.
