On August 29, 2006, Congregational Councilor Sr. Erika Patricia Sánchez Valdez celebrated 25 years of consecrated life surrounded by sisters, family members, and partners-in-mission in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. In this personal reflection, she looks back on the experiences, relationships, challenges, and graces that have shaped her vocation and mission over the past 25 years.
As I celebrate my 25 years of Consecrated Life in the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, I place my story, with deep gratitude, in the hands of the Owner of the Flock.
My vocation didn’t stem from self-sufficiency or human perfection. It came into my life as a gift from God, a call I neither sought nor expected, but which gradually took shape in my heart until it became my answer. Today I can recognize that God called me to be his disciple and sent me to share with others the infinite mercy he had first shown me.
Over the years, I have learned that only by acknowledging my own weaknesses, wounds, and frailties can I approach the weaknesses and sufferings of others with greater depth and tenderness. My personal story gradually became the place from which God taught me to see, understand, and accompany other stories.
My roots
I was born in Ciudad Isla, Veracruz, Mexico, on March 8, 1979, a date that would later be proclaimed as International Women’s Day. I was baptized on August 19, 1979, the feast day of Saint John Eudes, founder of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge.
As time went on, I discovered that these two dates were a beautiful coincidence that seemed to foreshadow, in some way, the path God would lay out for my life: the dignity of women, on the one hand, and the gift of baptism, on the other. Saint John Eudes affirmed that the date of baptism is even more important than the date of birth, because it is the day we are truly born to God. Today I understand these coincidences as small signs of a story that God was already beginning to write.
My family consists of my mother, Juana Valdez Álvarez, and my two older brothers, Zenaido and Antonio Sánchez Valdez. When I was five years old, my father died in an accident. Since then, my mother has bravely and lovingly taken on the role of both mother and father.
She has always been a woman of deep faith and unwavering trust in God. Even in the most difficult moments of our lives, I never heard her complain or grumble. On the contrary, she would calmly repeat, “God is good and knows what we need“.
Thanks to my mother’s faith, I have been blessed to witness many miracles in my family’s life and in my own. Today I recognize that one of those great miracles has been, precisely, my vocation.
God made himself present in my wounds
During my childhood and early adolescence, my life was marked by various situations of violence and misunderstanding. These experiences forged the indomitable character that has defined me and that only God, with his patience and tenderness, has been able to transform.
Those experiences filled my heart with resentment, anger, and a desire for revenge. However, it was precisely there, amidst my wounds and contradictions, that God began to make his presence felt.
At 15, I experienced something that profoundly marked my life: I felt truly embraced, understood, and loved by God. That experience brought about a deep transformation in me. I began to discover that my story, even with its wounds, could become a place of encounter with him.
Two years later, at the age of 17, I experienced a new calling: to do something I had never imagined, to dedicate my life to serving women wounded like me and to transform that courage I carried within into strength for the mission of compassion, justice, and tenderness.
Over time, I came to understand that God had not wasted any part of my story. Even what had hurt me could become, in his hands, a source of compassion to accompany others.
The call to Consecrated Life
On August 19, 1998, I entered the postulancy in Saltillo, Coahuila, at the age of 19. A year later, on the same date, I entered the novitiate. On October 20, the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I pronounced my first vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and zeal for the salvation of people.
During that time of formation, God granted me the grace of meeting sisters who, through their silent witness and daily dedication, taught me the value and beauty of the consecrated life. They helped me understand that vocation is not without difficulties or complex human situations, but that it is precisely in the midst of them that it is possible to discover God’s faithfulness.
On September 29, 2007, the Feast of the Holy Archangels Michael, Raphael and Gabriel, to whom I have a special devotion, I pronounced my perpetual vows in the city of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in the parish of San Felipe de Jesús.
A life dedicated to the mission
During these years of missionary life, I have had the grace of sharing my life with women in prostitution, women deprived of their freedom, and victims of violence. I have also accompanied girls and adolescents with behavioral problems and in vulnerable situations.
Each of these experiences has left a profound mark on my life. In the faces, wounds, struggles, and hopes of so many women and girls, I have discovered the face of Christ, who continues to cry out for dignity, justice, and mercy. Their lives proclaimed to me, in many ways, that “one person is worth more than the world” and that it is always worthwhile to continue giving one’s life for justice, dignity, and hope.
For two years I was responsible for leading the Regional Office of Justice and Peace for Latin America, in São Paulo, Brazil. I have also had the opportunity to assume different responsibilities within the Congregation.
Currently, my sisters have entrusted me with the leadership of the Congregation, working alongside other sisters and the Congregational Leader. I received this responsibility not as a personal achievement, but as a new call to serve, listen, accompany, and walk together.
A mission that expanded my heart
Throughout these 25 years, the Lord has granted me the grace to enlarge my heart . It has allowed me to share life, faith, and bread with sisters from different countries, languages, and cultures. In this diverse community, the Holy Spirit has taught me to love, respect, and learn from difference.
Each culture has become for me a mirror of God’s greatness. Living with diversity has patiently taught me the art of seeing the world through the eyes of the Good Shepherd: without judgment, embracing the wholeness of each person, and discovering that Gospel love knows no borders and needs no translators when speaking the universal language of charity.
Sustained by God’s faithfulness
Following the Good Shepherd has been a demanding and exciting adventure. God has always challenged me to go further. I have experienced the weight of my fragility, the vertigo of my own limitations, and also moments of inner turmoil in which, humanly speaking, I have wanted to let go of God’s hand. But He has never let go of mine.
His faithfulness has been infinitely greater than my doubts, my fears, and my weaknesses. When I couldn’t see the way, he kept walking with me. When my strength seemed to fail, he sustained me. And when I didn’t know where to go, his Spirit reminded me again that my life had meaning: to follow the Good Shepherd and participate in his mission of mercy to reconcile the world to him.
A story of grace
Today, as I celebrate these 25 years, I don’t want to recount my years of consecrated life as a story of personal achievements. I see them as moments of pure grace .
With the heart ablaze with love of Saint John Eudes and with the missionary boldness of Saint Mary Euphrasia, today I again pronounce my “Here I am, Lord,” with my history, my wounds, my lessons, my frailties, and my dreams.
May my life continue to be a clear channel of your tenderness, a refuge for those who suffer, a voice for those who cannot be heard, and an instrument of your justice and mercy.
Never forget that a person is worth more than the world.
