Sister Mary Piedad Natino celebrates 50 years

Before I became a sister with the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration, I felt I needed a super-power within me–the Holy Spirit to heed God’s call.  I learned to pray to the Holy Spirit at every turn of event, “Come Holy Spirit.”

I was born on March 25, 1941, in the Philippines and was the last of my six siblings. I was raised like an only child because my brothers and sister were away from home pursuing their college studies or living out their lives and careers in the city and the youngest boy in the family was in the seminary.

A vocation is certainly a gift from God who plants the seed and uses his instruments to nurture the seed, and it was exactly so with my religious vocation. When I was just a child, I had my first encounter with sisters when two nuns came to our house to sell books. After that, my neighborhood friends and I enjoyed playing nuns with towels for our veil and a bag of books at hand.

My mother and many more were instrumental in nurturing the seed of religious life. When I broke the news to my family that I would be entering the convent, my mother, a prayerful woman, confided in me, saying, “Praise God! I prayed for it!”

My best friend in college entered the convent before our graduation and puzzled, “I asked her why the hurry?” She shed a light of wisdom on me by telling me that had she not decided to listen to God’s call and in turn not answered Him–she would be unhappy.

The guiding thought stayed with me, “God calls and I make the decision to heed the call.” That’s when it dawned on me that I need a super-power within me, which is the Holy Spirit. 

After my high school graduation from a public school, I went to St. Paul College of Manila for my college studies and then I taught for two years with the sisters there.

As a teacher, I stayed in the college dormitory where I met one of my fellow teachers, who was a graduate of Holy Spirit College in Manila. Through her, I became acquainted, even friends, with several Holy Spirit Sisters.

During my first year of teaching, we had a teacher’s retreat with Father Roberto Esbroeck, CICM. I went to confession, but I could not talk. I was sobbing and filled with sorrow for my sins. The priest advised me to see him in his office and I heard from him what I did not expect. He said, “You have a vocation to the religious life to serve God and God alone. The Lord is calling you for sure and I will guide you. Father Esbroeck became my faithful spiritual director, God’s powerful instrument.

I applied to the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters and was accepted and I entered the convent in 1965. 

I made my first profession of vows in 1968 and my perpetual vows in 1974. After 15 years of professed life, a deep-seated inner voice would say, “You can also be my contemplative.” And I had a big ‘NO’ for that gentle invitation. “Lord, let me not go into that process of applying again.”

My love for Jesus in the Eucharist, the God who is ever present for me and who lives with me under the same roof, physically, mystically and spiritually, and the God to whom I can entrust everyone in my human family at home and worldwide grew in leaps and bounds. I spent time with him in our school chapel before going to bed until I got the courage to apply to the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters, known as the Pink Sisters. In 1984, I joined them, and with them, I made my perpetual vows in 1986.

 On Dec. 16 of the same year, I arrived in St Louis, Missouri and I have spent all my years since then till now in perpetual adoration as a contemplative nun–as Holy Spirit Adoration Sister. 

St. Arnold is our founder and Mother Mary Michael, Servant of God, is the co-foundress. The Divine Word Priests and Brothers, the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters and we, the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters make one big happy spiritual family of St. Arnold. We are all missionaries, fully intent on spreading the good news of Jesus Christ through our particular charism.

My contemplative life is leading me to the heart of my religious life–it is leading me to the heart of the one who called me to this life and this is the greatest joy of my contemplative vocation. The process of growth is never finished in a year or two, not even after 50 years. As a golden jubilarian, I am not a ‘finished product’ yet of divine love, but I am not a hopeless case with persevering faith and entrusting myself to Jesus and his Holy Spirit. Every day at adoration is a big help in overcoming myself–my self-centeredness, the giant enemy of the interior life. God wants the whole of me, but my “self” is the multi-faceted enemy of total self-giving. 

I can only thank God for the ways and means that our congregation provides help to nourish the interior life: the day and night adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament; the Divine Office to sanctify the hours of the day; the daily personal private prayer, the daily reading of Holy Scripture, the silence in the cloister with grand silence after night prayer, etc. Even our convent bears physical signs that God is calling his bride wholly to himself with the least or no distraction: the grille in the parlor and the cloister garden limit our physical world to remind us that the call to belong to God is a non-stop call, with ‘no turning back.’  Our Congregation is truly a prototype of a good mother to her spiritual children.

Overwhelmed by the greatness of my religious contemplative vocation, I have all the reason to keep on moving to achieve the goal of unity with God, the Unity of a bridegroom and a bride.

 I will never be alone in this task confident that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are always there for me to empower me. Yes, let everyone know that as a Golden Jubilarian, I am not God’s finished product yet, but I will keep hoping, praying with you and with the Church. Alleluia.

For you, your loved ones and for everyone, I pray, “May the Holy Triune God live in our hearts and in every heart. Amen.”