I find it very difficult to say who I am. To be perfectly honest, I have to tell you that I’m still finding out, and sometimes I surprise myself. My name is Ana María Teresa, but people have called me all sorts of things: Teté, Ana Tere, Mariaté, Ana María, and for 20 years now I’ve been nothing but Ana. I’m the third of a clan of one boy and five girls. I must say that my sisters are also my friends, and my brother is someone very special and much loved.

My spirituality is certainly yet another child of my mother’s affection and the piety of her family, consisting of my grandmother, three aunts who entered the convent, and an uncle who is almost like a priest. Their piety is a little bit penitential, perhaps even Jansenistic, but also full of feeling. My spirituality is also a product of my father’s love. He gave me a positive father-image: he was always ready to listen to what I asked for, and was sometimes my accomplice. He didn’t expect me to agree all the time, in fact he wasn’t at all exacting. All these qualities I could easily apply later to my image of God, but on a larger scale.

At a meal quite recently, some older sisters asked Mariola and me what it was about the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that had attracted us. Mariola said something about spirituality or the importance of contemplation. My answer was: “Realising that these nuns were normal women.” Then I scolded myself: “How could you be so worldly?” And as I looked back over my story I understood why. The Lord saved me; he set me free by means of specific women who lived the charism they had inherited from Sophie. If they had not come to meet me at that time of crisis, when life seemed meaningless, either I would have remained stunted, a slave of my fears, insecurities and constant remorse, or I would have been very “holy”, convinced that the more sufferings and frustrations I let into my life and accepted passively, the closer I would be to the heart of an idol I would have called god.

I’m not tall, barely 150 centimetres (about 5ft), but God has had to use very many of his human “hands”, especially my rscj sisters and poor women and children, to mould and clean me up from within, so much so that I couldn’t ask for anything more. I could even say that they have enlarged my heart by coming to live in it.

I was born in Mexico D.F. in 1963. In ’79 our family moved to Culiacán, a coastal town, in the north of the country, and the following year we settled in Guadalajara, Jalisco, where my heart put down roots. There I studied architecture at the Jesuit university, where I think my option for the poor began to be forged. I entered the Society in 1990 at 27, old in comparison with my companions.

Until recently, the various aspects of my apostolate seemed to clash. I was convinced that the Congregation had made an exception in my favour, accepting me although I had no charism for education. After the noviceship I did a bit of everything: teaching religion to small children, youth work, even with a gang of young hooligans, pastoral care of indigenous people, collaboration in the CEBs (basic ecclesial communities), work with street children, teaching teenagers in one of our high-schools, guiding CVX (Christian life communities)in university chaplaincy. I had tried everything and liked it, but I couldn’t define it as “mine”. I always had an itch for theology, but with this problem: You’re already an architect, so wouldn’t it be better to get your Master’s and forget about theology?

Two years before probation I was finally able to practise my profession within religious life and in an NGO that promoted rural development. Working to improve housing in country areas, I felt for the first time that I could be comfortable with all my different “hats”: rscj, architect, educationalist, and at the service of the poor.

I asked to have my international experience in Cuba. What attracted me was the mirage of an egalitarian society created by the revolution, but I knew from our sisters that the real state of affairs in the country was poverty. I lived there for eight months, with plenty of austerity, but I was happy. In spite of their suffering, these people are bright, supportive and entertaining; they won me over. The Revolution was a disappointment to me; it was – and still is – a system that in many ways paralyses the development of the person and of society; though I do acknowledge that some of its decisions have been good.

I can say that the experience of probation took me to pieces and gave me the essentials to put myself together again in a more human way; I was no longer built on my own sand, but on the firm rock of God’s unconditional love. Although I still have some areas that need shoring up, I can already offer hospitality and service.

I tried living in Nicaragua, but it didn’t work, so I returned to Mexico, where at last I could make my dream come true and study theology. I really appreciate it because, as well as being enjoyable, it brought me the steel and concrete to rebuild my life; especially the theology of the Uruguyan Juan Luis Segundo and the experience of Cristina White rscj, whom I got to know through her poems.

I don’t think I shall ever be one of those fearless missionaries who rush off to other countries because they want to extend the frontiers of the Kingdom. I went back to Cuba in a mad moment, moved by a need that is my passion: to follow Jesus ever more closely, even, perhaps, to the extent of wearing him down. I came looking for him here, because I caught sight of him in solidarity with the poor, in the paradox of the sad who laugh at their situation, and so give me joy and help me to put my own troubles into perspective; in the dignity of these people who do not judge you according to your profession, the colour of your skin, or your address; in their contemplative, creative gaze, finding a rusty screw among the rubbish and later converting it into just what is needed to mend a faulty fan.

This is what gives me life. So does writing and talking about it, and contemplating the Artist transforming human clay into daily miracles.