Sister Rose Amaranto, SDSH

I wasn’t born a Sacred Heart Sister.  I come from a very loving and very Catholic family.  We would pray together and play together.  I am the oldest of 4 children and the only girl.  My brothers and I had a lot of fun; we were silly and played around all the time, sometimes too rough and my mom would have to yell at us to be gentler with each other or to be careful of the things around us.  I loved my family and I always knew that when I grew up I wanted to be a mom and to have a family of my own.  I wanted many children.  Being a religious sister was never part of my plan.

In 5^th grade my mom started home schooling my brothers and me.  To start our day in home schooling, we would get up and go to 8:30 Mass.  Every day after Mass my mom would kneel down and pray for a few minutes and then get up and we would go home.  It was during this quiet time of prayer that my life changed.  I was in 7^th grade and morning Mass had just ended.  I don’t remember if I was praying or just looking up at the crucifix thinking about things, when all of a sudden I heard a voice.  It wasn’t a voice from the outside like I would hear when someone was speaking; it was a very clear voice in my heart that asked me, “Will you be a nun?”  I was shocked.  I didn’t want to say no to God but I didn’t want to say yes because all I could think was, “But I want to be a mom.”  We left to go home and I hadn’t given God an answer.  The next day after Mass, God started gently asking me again and this time the answer was yes.

I didn’t tell anyone what happened, but I held it closely in my heart.  Life went on.  It wasn’t until I turned 16 that my relationship with God changed.  At that time I no longer wanted to accept the fact that I was going to be a sister someday.  I began to ask God, “Why did you choose me?”  For 2 years I struggled with God about this.  When I turned 18, I graduated from high school and was thinking about going to nursing school.  Being a Sister would come later.

The summer before college I went to Big Bear to help the Sisters with the Girls’ Camp that they hold there.  While I was there I received a scripture quote that said, “My peace is My gift to you, the world cannot give this peace to you.”  I knew God was telling me to let go of the world and to follow Him; and that in following Him, I would be at peace.  There was no need to be afraid.  So for the 2^nd time, I said yes to God, but this time, it was with all my heart.  After camp I knew that I couldn’t put God on hold any longer, it was time to act.  Instead of going to nursing school, I decided to take a year off and to seriously discern where God was calling me.  I began to spend time with the Sacred Heart Sisters.  The more time I spent with the sisters, the more I wanted to be with them.  Finally I told God, “I don’t understand why I feel so drawn to the Sisters, I don’t know if I can be one of them, but I’m going to try.”  I knew that if He was really calling me, He would give me the grace to do it and to overcome myself.  And He did.  On September 15, 2005, I entered our Novitiate House in Chatsworth.

On March 29, 2008, I professed my 1^st Vows.  Someone once asked if I was happy and I said yes, happier now than I’ve ever been; and I keep getting happier.  So you can always trust that even if God’s plan doesn’t seem like the right plan for you, He can make it happen if you say yes and in the end it will make you happiest.