María Gorete dos Santos, María de Lourdes dos Santos and María Aparecida dos Santos, 57, are triplets and nuns from the Franciscan Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They were born into a Catholic family of 17 siblings in the interior of Bahia (Brazil). They had a notion of vocation at their childhood. “We didn’t know, we didn’t know what it was like, we just wanted to be religious. It was something that only God can explain,” said Sister Gorete.
Gorete, Lourdes and Aparecida are from Itamira, in the district of Aporá, where they met, still in childhood, “a nun from Italy, Sister Ricarda”, and the testimony of this nun made them want to follow the same path.
“She would visit the communities there where we attended Holy Mass and, while the parish priest attended to the people, she would gather the children, seat them in front of the altar, put on a record player and teach us. Lourdinha (Maria de Lourdes) then said: ‘When I grow up, I want to be like this sister.’ That made us feel her call de ella stronger. We grew up with this idea, that she matured and we walked with this ideal”, Mr. María Gorete told.
Sister Gorete recalled that her mother, Josefa Mendes de Souza, stated that she would not let her daughters leave the house unless it was to get married or be religious. “She said that if she went to go to a convent, she would leave them with all her heart from her, she would give all of her children from her.”
However, God had another plan for the triplets to be nuns.
A priest who celebrated Mass in the region found out about this wish and connected the nun at a convent in Salvador de Bahia, who told him that he could take the girls. The first to follow the vocational call was Maria de Lourdes, in 1984.
Sister Gorete recalled that María Aparecida also wanted to go, but her mother “said that it was not possible at that time, because we had to help with the younger siblings.” She related that her mother de ella “also helped the elderly in the community because in the fields they needed help to put firewood”, so they had to support her.
A year after María de Lourdes went to the convent, María Aparecida followed the same path and, after another year, it was María Gorete’s turn.
For Gorete, there may have been “a bit of influence from one sister to the other, because the first one dragged us along”; but she clarified that “each one already had her ideal of being religious, of consecrating her life from her to God. This was maturing and our will grew more and more”.
For a year the three lived in the same convent, in Salvador. “It was good for us to be together because one gave strength to the other,” said Sister Gorete.
However, the presence of the triplets “generated a lot of confusion in the convent”, because although “each one worked in a different place” when one of the nuns spoke with one of them and then with another, they thought they were the same.
Currently, Maria Gorete is in São José dos Campos, where she works at the Asilo Santo Antônio; María de Lourdes is in the convent of Santa Clara do Desterro, in Salvador; and María Aparecida spends time at home caring for her 85-year-old mother.
“Today, our mother needs care and wants us close. So we talk to mom and we can stay with her. We are going to take turns in this care”, indicated Sister Gorete.
For Sister María Gorete, following the religious life “is worth it”. “It is worth leaving everything, leaving the family. It is not like abandoning the family, but following what Jesus says: if you want to follow me, give up everything you have, take up your cross and follow me. It gives meaning to life,” she stated.
“By deciding to follow Jesus, we prepare ourselves for whatever comes. We don’t know what awaits us, but we know we are not alone. So, we have the courage to give up and go without fear. The apostles followed without fear and fulfilled their mission. We are here in the world to fulfill our mission to serve, be it in the family, in the convent, wherever God wants us to be”, she concluded.
(This story is adapted and edited from ACI Prensa)