CNA Newsroom, Mar 16, 2023 / 07:57 am
Triplets María Gorete dos Santos, María de Lourdes dos Santos, and María Aparecida dos Santos, 57, are all nuns belonging to the Franciscan Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Born into a Catholic family of 17 siblings in rural Bahia state in Brazil, they felt their vocation awakening in childhood. “We didn’t know … what it was like, we just wanted to be religious. It was something that only God can explain,” María Gorete said.
Gorete, Lourdes, and Aparecida are from the small town of Itamira in the district of Aporá. There they met “a nun from Italy, Sister Ricarda” when they were children, and the nun’s witness made them want to follow the same path.
“She visited the communities there, where we attended holy Mass and, while the parish priest ministered to … the people, she gathered the children, seated them in front of the altar, put on a record player, and taught us,” María Gorete said.