Vocation Week • Elva Leticia is a contemplative Augustinian Recollect nun. she comes to our pages in this special Week to tell us about her experience of being called to life Augustinian-Recollect in the convent enclosure and contemplation.
My name is Elva Leticia Xicay. I am 27 years old. I was born in Patzicia, Chimaltenango, a beautiful town of Guatemala, with its wide streets and peaceful climate. I am the sixth of nine siblings. One of them is a Franciscan religious.
I was born in a very Christian family. Sundays for my parents were sacred and no one could miss mass. This family atmosphere helped me discover my religious vocation. I’ve been eight years in the monastery of the Augustinian Recollects of Lugo, in Galicia, Spain. In October 2022 I made my solemn profession. I am very happy.
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” It is what I feel as I consider the gift of my contemplative religious vocation. I felt the call of the Lord from the early age of twelve, because the environment that surrounded me was very Christian.
I had never heard of nuns or convents. When the Lord calls he always does so simple way: through people, media or life circumstances. you just have to be attentive and know how to listen.
I remember that in my house we watched religious movies. My brother, today a Franciscan, encouraged me to see a film about Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska. A myriad of questions came to mind: Why is she dressed like that? What is her mission? Who is she? my brother explained to me that she was a nun who consecrated her whole life to God, who gave her gifts extraordinary and she is now a saint. It stuck with me and turned it over in my head.
Another day, my mother commented: “The neighbor’s daughter became a nun.” And I said to myself: “I will be too.” But time went by and I forgot about the nuns. Two years ago I joined the parish group of readers. A seminarian came to talk to us about the vocation and I felt the restlessness again, but I did not know who to turn to. I was very confused. I decided to tell the parish priest. After listening to me carefully, he told me:
— “Do you really want to be a nun?” Do you know how they live in a convent?
I told him that I was very confused and that I had never been to a convent. And then he
He offered to take me with some nuns to have an experience. But my parents’ consent was missing, which I asked for that same night. My mother began to cry:
— “Are you sure?” my mother asked.
— Yes, I answered.
— “If you feel that God calls you for that,” she continued, “go ahead!”
— Of course not! -my father intervened-. You are underage, you still don’t know what you want in life. You have a future ahead of you!
Although my mother and one of my brothers convinced him, that day he told me not to count with him. I have to say that now I have unconditional support in him. I was with the nuns for a few days, but that did not convince me, I felt that God was calling me to something deeper. When a new parish priest arrived I told him about it, he took me to meet other nuns for a month. And I liked it, but it didn’t fill me up. The priest asked me if I really wanted to consecrate my life totally to God. He contacted the Augustinian Recollect nuns of Lugo.
When the prioress of the monastery asked me about my age —I was 14 years old— she was clear:
— “Then you can’t come.” I felt very sad: she had to be of legal age and wait four
years was for me an eternity. I was forgetting everything and although the prioress continue calling to see how I was doing, I started dating friends and started a relationship with a boy. I decided to start a family and forget about the contemplative vocation.
But the restlessness did not leave me; I felt it deep inside me and, in order not to listen to it, I tried to distract myself until one day I said to myself:
— What are you doing? Why do you insist on taking another path? Isn’t it worth its risk and leave everything for Jesus?
I left the relationship and spent time praying, asking God for the strength to leave everything and to fulfill his will in me.
When I turned 18 we began to process the papers. The last days at home were difficult. Nobody wanted me to come to Spain, they told me to stay in a convent in Guatemala. It was hard for me to leave my family, my country, my customs. But I told Jesus:
— I will follow you, Lord, wherever you go and send me.
In the end, my family understood that everyone has the right to seek their own happiness and that it was the will of God. They decided to donate their daughter to God with joy and now they feel the proudest and happiest parents.
I entered the monastery of Lugo on October 7, 2014, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Here I feel fulfilled, because I have found the happiness that everyone seeks and only following Jesus is found. You made us, Lord, for yourself and our hearts will be restless until rest in you.
Prayer and community life make my life special. We really live as they were told the first Christians: Look how they love each other; or, as Saint Augustine says, with one soul and one heart towards God.
I never thought that in a monastery of contemplative Augustinian Recollects one could be so happy. I have found a true family, where the help is mutual and the love disinterested; where I feel loved and can love without conditions. I have understood the true meaning of the new commandment: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Now I don’t think or feel the same as I thought and felt outside the convent. My aspirations were then to study medicine, find a job, start a family… Now my project is to reach holiness, to win with my prayer and sacrifice people for heaven and that all know and love God.
In the community I feel fulfilled because despite the fact that we think differently and the different temperaments we get along very well, putting a grain of good will and letting each one express their way of seeing common things. We enrich each other with gifts and virtues. And the most wonderful thing is that we have in we share a single name, Jesus, and our compass is charity. we feed on formation and we love our common charism.
As daughters of Saint Augustine, and in the same way that he loved the Church, we love the Church, our mother: We are the Church for the Church, in the Church and with the Church. And like good daughters of the Church every day we pray for the unity of Christians and for the whole world.
We really want to be light and torch for the world. My community in Lugo is made up of thirteen nuns. Five are elderly Spanish and eight of us are young Guatemalans. Of these, seven are of solemn vows and one of simple vows. And we have a postulant, also from Guatemala.
In 2017 the assistant of the Federation of Augustinian Recollect Sisters of Spain, the Augustinian Recollect Jesús Lanao, told us about the difficult situation of the monastery of Somió-Gijón, Asturias. The three remaining sisters, old and sick, asked for the help of other communities. That touched our hearts.
After consulting it in the community and asking for the advice of the federal mother, Eva María Oiz, and with the consent of our bishop, it was decided to send three sisters to Somió as a beautiful gesture of fraternal charity. Two years later the Congregation of Religious affiliated legally Somio to our community of Lugo. Now we implore the mercy of God to send vocations and avoid closure.
As a livelihood, we do laundry, ironing, sewing and make hosts for the cathedral and the parishes. The people of Lugo appreciate us very much, help us and pray for us.
