During the preparations for WYD 2011, even before it actually takes place, WYD Madrid has changed many lives. This is the story of Verónica Clara Montes a young girl who realized that she had a vocation when she took the WYD cross from the hands of young Australians for it to begin its journey all over Spain.Quite by chance, Verónica Clara was one of the young girls chosen to go up to the altar to receive the WYD cross during Holy week in Rome, 2009.
Here is the testimony of this young girl, today a Sister of Iesu Communio:
"During WYD 2005 in Cologne I had the opportunity to live with many Christians. The experience made me realize that Christianity is not a utopia, but a living reality. I discovered the beauty of being Christian and, from that moment, I decided to participate in everything that the Church could offer me.
And then one day, with a group of young parishioners we were going over our plans to travel to Rome in Holy Week of 2009, and I was told that I’d been chosen to go up to the altar and take the cross from the hands of the young people of Sidney. I had been given the gift of being one of those chosen to take over directly from them.
‘Why me, Lord?’. That was the question in my heart, because it seemed that this was something big, too big for me. As soon as I could, I went to the chapel and prayed to Jesus: ‘
Lord, don’t let me receive your Cross as if it were any old thing’.
Palm Sunday arrived and we went into Saint Peter’s Square in procession with the Holy Father, who blessed the palms. At the end of the Eucharist, young people from Sidney and Madrid approached the altar and, in the moment we were given the Cross I felt in my heart "You are receiving the suffering of Humanity". I didn’t know what this meant, nor the importance it might have in my life. I was afraid, but I didn’t tell anybody. My friends asked me what I’d felt, and all I could do was give a half-smile and say: "Good… but why had the Lord put those words into my mind?
That Holy Week, after years of fighting with the Lord because I sensed His call, I gave a simple yes to His will, which changed my life. After that acceptance, the Lord showed me, very gradually, that He wanted me for Himself. Ever since my sister Caná entered the Monastery in 2000, and precisely because I was so stunned when she did enter, I began to say to the Lord: No, me a nun, no!, though I ended up begging to enter Iesu Communio, a religious institute where I became a postulate in October 2009.Today, in the light of this call, I understand what Jesus made me feel in St. Peter’s Square. He called me to be with Him, to live a consecrated life happily and to accept the suffering of humanity. He chose me to make me happy and because He wanted me to share in His thirst and His desire: that no one should go astray and that all should have life.
Thank you, Mother Church, in whom we are born to a new life".
Iesu Communio is a religious congregation founded by the Spanish Poor Clare nun Sister Verónica in Burgos (Spain). There are currently about 203 nuns in the community, most of them between 18 and 35 years old.
