By Michael Gresham
The Texas Catholic

Sister Juliana Guadalupe, S.V., began her journey of faith with friends in high school and watched it grow with spiritual direction from peers and priests at Southern Methodist University. On Aug. 6, she continued that journey as one of 10 women who professed their perpetual vows as Sisters of Life at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

“It was beautiful, powerful, and was definitely the best day of my life,” Sister Guadalupe, 29, said. “God has called me to this life.”

The roots of her discernment can be traced back to her hometown parish in Providence, Rhode Island.

“I remember in high school having this sense that I had so many things I was a part of — gymnastics, cheerleading, school life — but I had this thirst in my heart for something deeper in life,” Sister Guadalupe said. “God was good to me, though. He put wonderful friends in my life around the time I was 16 who really showed me the witness of being fully alive in Christ.”

Those friends taught her how to pray and invited her to eucharistic adoration for the first time.

“It really was like my life going from black and white to full color,” she recalled. “The thirst I had, the belonging I craved, the love and joy I needed, it was all right there waiting for me in that little adoration chapel at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Providence.”

It was at the Providence parish Sister Guadalupe first felt the call to religious life.

“Our priest had invited some Dominican sisters to visit our youth group,” she recalled, adding that it was her first personal encounter with religious women. She was surprised by the impact that visit had upon her. “The thought of religious life had never crossed my mind. I had plans for my life.”

Sister Guadalupe said she had always imagined getting married, having a family, and having a career.

“But meeting the sisters, it struck me just how joyful they were. We ate pizza. We laughed. We even played basketball,” she said. “They were living the joy of heaven here on Earth. There was something about their witness that just set my own heart on fire.”

Sister Guadalupe recalled that after the visit, she again visited that adoration chapel at her parish where she had first started to build the bonds of her Catholic faith. It was there that the future religious sister said she had her first heartfelt talk with Jesus, asking, “Is it possible that you might call me to religious life?”

“I was terrified and didn’t really know at the time what it all meant,” she said, “but I couldn’t deny there was this gentle fire burning in my heart.”

Blossoming vocation

Those roots of faith established in Rhode Island blossomed into a life of devotion to God when Sister Guadalupe enrolled as a student at Southern Methodist University in 2012 and became involved with the Catholic Campus Ministry at SMU.

“When I came to SMU, I was open and I was seeking God’s will for my life,” said Sister Guadalupe, who credits her time with SMU’s campus ministry, and in particular its chaplains Father Tony Lackland and Father Arthur Unachukwu, for helping take that spark of vocation and cultivate it into something more. “Father Tony, at first, and then Father Arthur really helped me to know the value of prayer life.”

Father Lackland, who now serves as pastor of Christ the King Catholic Parish, is another product of SMU and its Catholic Campus Ministry. While active in the campus ministry, he too discerned a religious vocation that eventually led him to become a priest. He recalled as a student at SMU that Sister Guadalupe had a “wholesome love of the Lord” and the Catholic faith.

“From day one, upon her arrival at the Catholic Center, she beamed with what I can only describe as a ray of light and joy,” Father Lackland said, recalling that Sister Guadalupe immediately became involved in the campus ministry at SMU. “Her faithfulness in prayer was evident in her presence at Mass, and her gentle but firm zeal to honor the sacredness of life was lived not only in word but most definitely in deed.”

Father Lackland said he recalled that in Sister Guadalupe’s early days of discernment to the religious life, she was open to following where the voice of the Lord would lead her.

“And the Lord led her to the Sisters of Life,” he said. “I am humbled to have been a small part of her discernment and rejoice that God allowed me to be a vessel for His glory.”

Father Unachukwu, who now serves as pastoral administrator of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Parish, said Sister Guadalupe already possessed a healthy spiritual life by the time he met her when he was chaplain at SMU.

“She had a prayer life and had a sense of responsibility about her. She was a leader in the pro-life efforts on campus,” Father Unachukwu recalled. “When I arrived, she was one of the first students to begin spiritual direction with me and I began directing her in terms of a deeper prayer life.”

While at SMU, Sister Guadalupe started going to daily Mass, looking for times to just have silence and prayer as a regular part of her life.

“I think that made the space for God to keep speaking to me,” she said.

Following graduation from SMU with an accounting degree, Sister Guadalupe worked for six months at Birth Choice of Dallas, now known as Bloom Pregnancy Help Center.

“At that point, I already knew I was going to be entering religious life,” she said, “but it was a beautiful place to just let my heart be formed.”

Sisters of Life

In September 2016, she entered the community of the Sisters of Life, a religious group she had first met as she neared graduation from SMU. The Sisters of Life is a religious congregation dedicated to the protection and enhancement of the sacredness of life.

“I think I had always felt a sense of God calling me to give my life for the sacredness of human life,” Sister Guadalupe said. “Deeper than that, I had this call to be the bride of Christ. I just wasn’t sure how I was going to put those two together.”

The answer came when Father Unachukwu, after several months of assisting her to discern her vocation, encouraged Sister Guadalupe to learn more about the Sisters of Life. He recalled that she initially said, “No.”

“She didn’t want to be put in a box just because she was involved in the student pro-life group,” Father Unachukwu said. “I advised her to learn more about the sisters and to just keep praying about it.”

So, Sister Guadalupe went to the community’s website, first noticing an image of a sister lying prostrate before the altar on the day of her final vows.

“It had a caption that read, ‘To lay down our lives that others might live.’ It just made my heart swell,” she said. “I knew what I could do for the sacredness of life. It didn’t have to do with the pro-life movement, politics, or any of that. It meant giving myself in love to Jesus. He was calling me.”

Her final semester of college, Sister Guadalupe made a trip to the Sisters of Life convent in New York.

“As I prayed there in their chapel, it was like a revelation; when the Lord knit me together in my mother’s womb, He had the Sisters of Life in mind and the deepest desires of my heart would be fulfilled in that vocation,” she said.

Father Unachukwu said he is always proud and happy when someone who was once a part of his ministries, such as SMU Catholic, discerns a religious vocation.

“I think it is the most gratifying thing for a priest to see the fruitfulness of ministry,” he said. “We don’t always see it and don’t do our ministry solely for it, but it’s truly a cause for rejoicing and gratitude when we see God’s faithfulness.”

Recalling when he first met her, Father Unachukwu said he is filled with pride and joy to see her fulfill her calling.

“She has discovered what God has put in her heart, and I am just so happy for her,” he said.

Father Lackland said his heart was “full of joy” that Sister Guadalupe had found her vocation with the Sisters of Life.

“Sister Juliana Guadalupe remains in my daily prayer as she labors for the Lord, praying and protecting the ‘dignity and worth of each person created from and for God’s great love,’ ” he said.

Sister Guadalupe’s parents, Paul and Gloria Martin, followed her from Rhode Island to Texas, settling in Plano where they are now parishioners at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. She said that while initially surprised by her decision, their ongoing love and support has meant the world to her.

“When my dad came to visit me the first time in the convent, he said he realized he hadn’t lost a daughter. He had gained 100 more daughters,” she said. “That was just really beautiful.”

As a Sister of Life, Sister Guadalupe will continue to be a part of the community’s Hope and Healing ministry, offering accompaniment for women who have suffered from the wound of an abortion.

“I think God has a unique plan for every woman who suffered from an abortion,” Sister Guadalupe said, explaining that the Sisters of Life lead healing retreats and offer one-on-one accompaniment for women. “It’s just a blessed experience as we help these women understand Jesus’ heart and that there is no darkness that is too dark for Him. He can bring new life anywhere.”

Cutline for featured image:  Sister Juliana Guadalupe, S.V., right, professes her perpetual vows as a Sister of Life during a celebration Aug. 6 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Sister Guadalupe credits her time spent with the Catholic Campus Ministry at SMU with helping to bolster her faith and accompanying her discernment into religious life.