“There's this fascination with nuns: 'Who are nuns? What do they do?'”
“That's why I think the documentary was something people were really interested in and excited to see.”
In the film, Sr. Jacinta recalls that the prospect of becoming a nun seemed “so radical, so different from what a lot of my peers were doing” with their lives – as she described it, “out-of-the-stratosphere kind of different.”
A lifelong Catholic, she worked as an occupational therapist before joining the Franciscan Sisters in her late 20s. The first hints of her vocation came on a pilgrimage to Rome for World Youth Day in 2000.
“I heard the Holy Father speak, at the closing Mass,” the Franciscan sister remembered. “I very much sensed that I wasn't doing a great job with my life, making myself happy. It was very clear to me, at that moment.”
“At the last Mass, with the Holy Father, I simply said in my heart as a prayer: 'Lord, you take over. Take my life, and I'll follow you. I won't follow me.'”
“I didn't know I was meant to be a nun. I just opened my heart to God's will.”
“Then I came back to England. What do you do then? I had to find something that would keep this kind of flame burning. I knew that I would die without it.”
A prayer group and the Legion of Mary apostolate became “lifelines” for the young professional, who came to see “the difference between my life in the world and my life of faith.”
She later left her job and worked as a full-time youth minister. “In that time, I really felt the Lord asking me to be his alone,” she said. “But I also realized that I was being called to community.”
“It just made sense. But it was very scary!”
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As a child, the future Franciscan sister had listened to bedtime stories about the saints. She had trouble imagining herself in a lifestyle radically geared toward holiness.
“I felt so far from the nuns I'd heard of, or even met. I thought they were kind of perfect, and beautiful, and amazing, and great evangelists.”
“I thought, 'That doesn't seem right for me – I'm not there yet, I'm very imperfect.'”
“But the Lord broke through that rubbish! If he calls, you answer, and you go and listen.”
Sr. Jacinta said the biggest sacrifice for her was not the loss of her possessions or the prospect of marriage.
“It has to be the separation from family,” she reflected. “For most of us, that's the biggest sacrifice. And it is a daily sacrifice.”