LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR NEW INTERNATIONAL DELEGATE

We interviewed Sister Isabel Higueras Hernández, DC, our new international delegate. Don’t miss a single detail and read the complete interview:

Before beginning the interview, Sister Isabel wanted to dedicate a few words to her predecessor, Sister Amadita Pinzón DC:

“Before beginning this interview, I send my warmest and most affectionate greetings to Sister Amadita. I met her in Salamanca. We chatted on the way back from a nearby wayside Shrine to the house, and we also shared rehearsals with the liturgy group. I wish her much love and good health.”

– Sister Isabel Higueras Hernández

With these words full of sincerity and affection, Sister Isabel begins this interview by telling us more about herself, her mission, and what she hopes for.

INTERVIEW

1. Who is Sister Isabel Maria? Tell us a little about your story.

“To answer this question, let me start by telling you about a very special event in my history that very few people know about, and that may very well define who I am today:

One day, my parents told me that I came into this world with hardly anything prepared because they feared for my life. Without even knowing that my mother was pregnant, they subjected her to a lot of medical tests for a possible brain tumor, and later, they were warned that I could be born with significant malformations. They told me they experienced my birth as a true miracle and never stopped thanking God. When I learned of this as an adult, I thought that perhaps the Lord could ask something big of me. And so it was…

I grew up in a family of deep faith. I had a Discalced Carmelite aunt who closely followed the important family events and with whom I often conversed. I also remember living every Sunday as a true day of the Lord. My family celebrated the Eucharist as the centerpiece of the day. At the end of the day, we continued to celebrate together. That was the first seed the Lord planted, and my family cultivated it with care. Isabel Maria is a woman of simple faith, very shy, sensitive, patient, and with a great sense of responsibility.”

2. What is the charism and spirituality of your congregation?

“The greatest treasure that we Vincentians have is the charism, that particular gift or grace that the Holy Spirit granted to St. Vincent de Paul at a given moment in history for the service and enrichment of the universal Church. Spirituality is a broader dimension that refers to [how] a person lives his or her faith and relationship with God. Following [as] Jesus Christ’s Servant, the Daughters of Charity give ourselves to God in community to serve Him in the person of the poor, with an evangelical spirit of humility, simplicity, and charity. This is our spirituality.”

3. How did you awaken your vocational call?

“At the age of three (3), my parents entrusted my education to the Daughters of Charity, and at the age of ten (10), I joined the Vincentian Marian Youth. In the Association, I was maturing and personalizing my faith and assuming different commitments until reaching the second stage of the catechumenate, considered “the stage of courtship with the Lord,” as expressed by a priest in one of the retreat meetings I attended. This greatly impacted me, and the Lord was doing His work.

One day, I accompanied a Daughter of Charity to visit a very low-income family living in an old railroad station on the city’s outskirts. I stayed at the door out of prudence, but the Sister came out and said, ‘Come in and see how this family lives…’ I was so impressed by what I saw that it never left my mind. I experienced a certain inner restlessness accompanying that image, and I was unsure what to do with it. After a while, I went to tell [the experience] to the Sister, who then began to accompany me. She suggested that I put a name to what I was experiencing. After a series of responses with “I do not know,” I told her, “What is it that God is calling me?” To which she answered, “Loudly, Isa, loudly…” I remember that day, that restlessness suddenly transformed into a deep inner peace, and after a time of silence, as if trying to make me aware of what was happening, I said to her, “And now…, what do I have to do?” The Lord was setting a totally unknown path to me, but [it is] beautiful and exciting. It was a matter of continuing to fall more and more in love each day with the One who had already set His gaze upon me.

I continued with my personal prayer, as that privileged moment of discovery of a close, individual, and friendly God was very different from the one I had known until then. One day, I prayed with the text of Jeremiah 20:7, “You seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced… You were stronger than I and overcame me.” I thought I would forget about it, but it was like a burning fire in my bones, which I struggled to contain but could not. That was just what was happening to me, the best description of what was happening inside me. After the inevitable struggles that occurred at the beginning of every vocation, I surrendered and accepted the great gift of the vocation to Consecrated Life for a person.

If I had to summarize my vocational journey from the moment I found myself, looking back with the perspective of time, I would say that it is a journey [of] freedom, with the sole task every day of loving the Lord more and more. On that path and in that task, hand in hand with Mary, I am happy and grateful today for the gift of my vocation and entrust it to Him every day.”

4. What is the mission of a Daughter of Charity?

“Nothing more and nothing less than to be continuers of the mission of Jesus Christ on Earth. St. Vincent de Paul told us, “To be true Daughters of Charity, one must do what the Son of God did on Earth. And what is it that He did principally? He worked unceasingly for His neighbor, visiting and healing the sick, and instructing the ignorant for their salvation.” Therefore, our principal and only mission is to serve Jesus Christ in His suffering members, representing the goodness of God before them and treating them as this same goodness teaches us, that is, with gentleness, compassion, friendship, respect, and devotion.”

5. How and when did you meet VMY?

“It occurs to me here to talk about different levels of knowledge. As I said before, I met VMY in a group with other girls my age when I was ten years old. Since then, I have gone through my VMY catechumenate process until, after sufficient discernment, I chose to start the postulancy stage with the Daughters of Charity.

During [my time in] Seminary, although it was not customary, I was fortunate to be the catechist of a VMY group. After finishing the Seminary, I was assigned to a very special place, the cradle of VMY in Spain: Benagalbón. There, I learned firsthand the most important things about VMY, thanks to a very charismatic sister who loved the Association deeply and served it for many years. She was my great teacher, as was the whole community. Years later, I would begin my first responsibility in VMY at the provincial level. After six years, I was appointed national delegate. Therefore, there have been four levels of knowledge that I have had in VMY: first, as a member, from the earliest age allowed until I joined the Company of the Daughters of Charity; second, as a Daughter of Charity and catechist, who learned a lot next to a magnificent provincial delegate; third, knowledge at the provincial level; and fourth, at the national level.”

6. What is it like to be part of the mission within the VMY International Secretariat?

“In this question, I do not dare to speak about something that I do not know from the inside, but on the other hand, I have been very fortunate to have had a closeness, both physical and emotional, with the VMY International Secretariat during the eight years that I was in Madrid as a national delegate of Spain.

In my discernment for this new mission, I have thought of all the delegates, assistant directors, presidents, and international volunteers of various generations, to whom I am united by great affection and gratitude for all that we have shared. With healthy pride, I can say that I have been part of the mission of the International Secretariat. From here, I dare to answer this question.

I remember countless collaborations, participation in meetings, walks, laughter, conversations, shared prayers, trips, meetings, commissions, assemblies, and all this with the mission committed to young people, the world, the Church, and the poor. I have a very special and grateful memory of the generation with whom I had to work tirelessly to prepare the Vincentian Youth and WYD in Madrid in 2011: Yasmine Cajuste, the international president at that time. There were two years of hard work and meetings, but they were worth it because of the bonds generated between the secretariats.”

7. What message would you leave for all the members of the Vincentian Family, young and consecrated?

“First of all, I would say something that seems obvious: that our presence, so necessary today wherever we are, should be an active presence. There comes a time when one discovers that life is full of challenges and possibilities wherever we are. Recently, I have been accompanying a group of VMY. It has been four (4) years in total, and I have to admit that it is one of the most difficult tasks I have ever done. Nowadays, it is not easy to be a catechist or to accompany children, adolescents, or young people, but I have learned that it is necessary to BE, and it is not enough to be in any way. It is the good sense of the expression that we KNOW we are there—nothing to go unnoticed, hidden, or self-conscious.

Secondly, because of the breadth and scope of the Vincentian Family worldwide, is this task of evangelizing young people? It is not just one more activity among a thousand others that we already have—and which makes us more tired than anything else, but it is the essence of the mission of the Church: “Go and make disciples…”. This task of each one of us is essential for the growth of all. In addition, this shared Mission, which traditionally has been more proper to the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, now belongs to everyone without exception because wherever and however I find myself, I have to proclaim Jesus Christ, sharing in the Church this task of being a missionary in the midst of the world and in the style of St. Vincent de Paul, serving and evangelizing the poor, our masters and masters.

Thirdly, it is easy to intuit how it should be if we speak of collaboration. All of us, feeling ourselves to be Church, from the condition of each one of us (married, single, young, missionaries, consecrated…), all of us, united in a common mission, transformed by Jesus and committed with simplicity in the proclamation of the salvation that is Jesus himself. When we are all united, consecrated, and lay people, it is like going from 3G to 5G coverage. We extend the coverage, and on top of that, it is free, which is good news for everyone.

Lastly, taking care of each other. The first experience I had, almost before I started, was to participate in a meeting for Advisors of America. I appreciated it very much, so I transmitted it to Catarina—the advisor who invited me to participate in that meeting. She referred to the fact that we have always thought of the Advisors as those who ‘take care of the young people,’ but who take care of them and us. She said, “We walk together, but each of us needs the care of the other, the one close to us, the one who walks beside me. Let us take care of ourselves without neglecting ourselves, let us take care of ourselves in order to take care of others, and let us allow ourselves to be taken care of, first of all, by the Master of care par excellence.”

We thank the VMY Communication Commission (CC). 

Interview: João Jorge Ferreira de Oliveira (VMY Brazil)

Edition: International Secretariat 

Translation: (ES) Ana Cruz – Honduras, (PT) João Ferreira – Brazil, (FR) Oriane Carelle – Cameroon, (EN) Karley Winschel – United States.