How did your vocation as a Hospitaller begin and what was your motivation for joining the Congregation of Hospitaller Sisters?
When I was a little girl in my village, I didn’t really want to be a nun, and it hadn’t crossed my mind. But one day, it was Sunday, around eleven o’clock in the morning, we were with my mother and my younger siblings shelling peas for lunch. She read us a letter from my religious sister in which she said: what does Isabelina (that’s what they called me at home) intend to do with her life? I don’t know why, but that sentence made me think… And from there came everything else.
I think that I joined this Congregation because at that time it was the only one I knew and there were already several people from my village, including my sister, in this Congregation. I am very happy that it was this specific Congregation that God called me to.
After spending many years in our centres in different roles, how has that experience influenced your understanding of the hospitaller vocation?
The first thing that comes to mind when I look at this question is the experience of God’s mercy in my life and in the lives of the people God has put in my path. The hospitaller vocation is an enormous grace of the Lord. He wanted, through my life and my actions, to show his deep love for my brothers and sisters. It is a vocation of charity where love, welcome, affection, understanding, empathy, dedicating time to everyone, doing good, etc., all this has great strength. All this has a great strength. And I have been able to see that all this is not easy to do in daily life and with perseverance, if there is not a deep friendship with Jesus, a great intimacy with Him, without dedicating much time to prayer, adoration, praise. I love the hospitaller vocation. I can only thank God for this great gift, which, without deserving it, He wanted to give me. Every day that passes, I feel more and more the desire to know Jesus more and to love him more.
In the context of caring for the elderly, how do you see the hospital vocation manifesting itself in your day-to-day life?
It manifests itself in giving myself totally to them. I love it when, first thing in the morning after Mass and meditation, I start my daily work and go to give breakfast to some of the people who need help. I try to exercise my faith and I am aware that the person I am taking care of is Jesus. I am often very conscious that what I am doing to that person, to those people in need, is Jesus Himself to whom I am doing it because He Himself said. “Truly I tell you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). This is a truth we must not forget. I often gaze lovingly at him, knowing that I look at Jesus and he looks at me in the eyes of these people, his living images. And sometimes, if it is the case, I give them a kiss knowing that it is Jesus Himself in this vulnerable person to whom I give it. I am living this experience more strongly lately. I am more and more aware of living in the presence of God. It is a grace of God that accompanies me in my daily life.
Can you share a specific experience where you have felt that your work has had a significant impact on the life of someone you have cared for?
I think that, in my daily work with the sick, I have had quite an impact on many people. I think I have done things with a lot of passion and dedication, and above all with a lot of joy. I like the work I do. I also believe that my life and my hospital work have had an impact on my collaborators and the families of the sick. I think this because they often tell me that my energy, dedication and enthusiasm for life and for what I do helps them.
Some specific experiences with young people to whom my life of dedication to the Lord, my unselfishness in helping them and always listening to them, without judging them, the time I dedicate to them, without rushing, has changed their lives.
How would you say that caring for older people, especially those with dementia or other related illnesses, reflects the values of the hospital vocation?
The values of hospitality are obvious and are clearly reflected when you go to care for people with dementia with an attitude of kindness, of closeness. With joy on your face. When you ask God in prayer that it is God who, through your actions, reflects his love for them. When you try to be patient and want to make their lives as happy as possible with small acts. When you are close to them, when what you do, you do well and not in any way. When you are well trained to carry out this beautiful work of helping the most vulnerable, with professionalism. I believe that the joy and peace that is reflected in the face of the person who comes to care for them with love and selflessness is the best reflection of hospital values.
What are the most significant challenges you have faced in your work and how have you overcome these challenges from a hospital vocation perspective?
The first challenge that comes to mind and that I have had to face on some occasions is when the final moment of the lives of the people we care for arrives and their relatives often do not understand why we continue to feed them as little as they can eat or give them as little as they can drink. Sometimes they ask you not to give them food and drink, to let them die peacefully because they are no longer aware of anything (according to their way of thinking) and that you are not even helping them by doing these small and simple acts of humanity. Sometimes, when the person is still alive for some time in that very deteriorated situation, they have been taken away from our centres and a few days later they tell us that they have died.
It also happens when sometimes you see reluctance on the part of the staff to help these people who apparently don’t realise anything, to take them to religious events, or to do appropriate activities for them, and so on.
Another challenge I see is when in working with them in daily life we don’t do everything we can to keep them active, walking if they can walk, motivating them to take part in everything that can benefit them. I try to always say and live this maxim that they come to our centres to live, not to die and our aim is that, whether they live long or short, they have a good quality of life.
Another challenge I see is to find collaborating personnel willing to take a more active part in the pastoral care of health in the centre. It seems that having to comply with so many laws and regulations robs us of time for more direct attention to the sick in this field.
For those considering a hospitaller vocation, what advice would you give them based on your own background and experiences?
By the grace of God, I am currently very involved with youth groups: Living Flame Youth Group. “Pure in Heart Youth Group. The prayer group with Youth in vocational discernment here in our house. With the Hakuna group, with the Emmaus women’s group, London, etc. The first thing I usually tell them is to pray, to know Jesus and to fall in love with Him. Read the Bible and try to get to know more and more of his message (we often do Lectio Divina with them). May they listen to Jesus and cultivate the desire to always do His will in their lives. May his plan be fulfilled in them. And if God’s plan is to follow him in religious life, in the priesthood, let them not hesitate, let them follow him without hesitation. He needs them. And in following him, they will find true happiness. I tell you that it is a very great grace of the Lord that he calls you to follow him in the priestly life, in the consecrated life. And if it is in the hospitaller consecrated life, wonderful.
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