Sister Rosa Ortiz, IWBS, Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament

In the first grade, when I attended a Catholic elementary school, I knew I wanted to be a Sister and a teacher.  Eventually my thoughts and ideas about boys changed those plans.  I then had an idea that marriage and 12 kids were in my future.  My education and ideas about the future continued to evolve. After graduating from college, I began teaching elementary school in Austin.  I had long forgotten some parts of my plan formed in elementary school and the Sisters who taught me in my younger days. 

While at a friend’s funeral, it hit me. I had to ask myself, “Rosa, what are you doing with your life and what is God calling you to do?”  I had to decide what I wanted in the depths of own life. That is when I began to recognize that I might have a call to be a nun.  It scared me.  I went on a retreat with the Sisters, and I knew I had come home.

Vocation is Music to my ears
Music is a passion for me. It is and has always been one of “my ways to God.”  I realize too that it is one of the paths by which my students find God. When I am teaching students it takes 100% of our efforts to make music as opposed to a joyful noise. 

Changing and growing in faith sometimes leads one down a different path not previously considered.  Currently I serve as the Vocation Director for the congregation and I journey with women who are seeking God and contemplating religious life.  My role in helping the candidate discern is like fine tuning the joyful noise into beautiful music.

One Person at a Time
How does God work and transform society?  God transforms society through each and every individual.  God works through us, his disciples, and through our witness.  He shows his love through us, who we are and what we do. For us as Sisters, it is mostly through who we are as consecrated women.  We become his sacred instruments touching and transforming the world because he has touched us. God is working through us…so we as Sisters strive to live the words of our foundress, “You may be the only Christ others see today.”

 
Sponsoring Congregations: Sisters of Divine Providence; Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Houston; Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament; and Dominican Sisters of Houston.