Sunday, Aug. 13, was a day of great rejoicing for the Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus. Sister Caeles Grace María, a native of Tucson, Arizona, professed her perpetual vows during a solemn Mass celebrated by Bishop Earl Fernandes in Our Lady of the Sacred Hart Oratory in Steubenville.
Sister is assigned to the order’s Columbus community. She was accompanied at the Mass by all the Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus assigned to the United States as well as her parents, Scott and Dynse Wilson, her two siblings and extended family and friends.
During the Holy Mass of Religious Profession, her vows were received by Mother Visitación de María, the local superior in Steubenville and delegate for Mother María Marta Simón, superior general of the Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus.
Sister Caeles Grace María processed into the oratory with a small, lighted oil lamp, as is traditional in the order, recalling the Gospel parable of the virgins who await the Bridegroom and expressing the desire to remain faithful to the gift of consecration forever, with the oil of fidelity burning brightly.
After being called by name by the mother superior, being examined by the bishop and having invoked all the saints in the Litany of the Saints, Sister Caeles Grace María pronounced the formula of profession, expressing her desire to be totally consecrated to the Heart of Jesus.
Through the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, she offered herself to God forever, as a response to His Love and to make His Heart known to the world through a life of adoration, reparation and apostolic love.
After sister signed the formula upon the altar, the bishop extended his hands in the prayer of consecration of the professed and subsequently placed the ring on sister’s hand in the name of Christ, saying: “Receive this ring as a bride of the eternal King; keep unstained your fidelity to your Bridegroom so that you may come to the wedding feast of eternal joy.” (Rite of Celebration of the Perpetual Profession)
The perpetual profession for the religious is the grace given by God of entering into an eternal covenant of spousal love and union with Him, making the religious a Bride of Christ in a bond that truly is perpetual, beginning on earth and lasting for eternity.
“I am grateful to the mercy of God and the guidance of Our Lady as well as everyone whom the Lord has placed along my path to persevere until now and reach this point,” Sister Caeles Grace María said. “I ask for prayers that, through His faithfulness and mercy, I may continue to persevere until death.”
Sister will return to Columbus to help with the order’s growing monthly D.O.Y.M.A.R. Prayer Movement for girls and young women. She will also serve at St. Paul the Apostle.
Sister Caeles Grace Maria kneels before Bishop Earl Fernandes during a Mass at which she professed her perpetual vows to the Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus order. Photo courtesy Daughters of Holy Mary
The Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus, which is based in Madrid, Spain, was founded by Mother María de Jesus. It is made up of approximately 600 professed sisters and has spread to 10 countries. Its first U.S. community was established in Steubenville in 2011.
In October 2022, the sisters opened a second Ohio community, in the Diocese of Columbus, residing at St. Therese Retreat Center and serving Westerville St. Paul the Apostle Church and School. In union with Mary, the sisters are contemplatives and missionaries of the love of God revealed in the Heart of Jesus.
Sister Caeles Grace María met the sisters as a student during a vocations panel at Franciscan University of Steubenville. During her sophomore year at the university, she began to live with the sisters as a candidate and further discern her vocation.
“I started to visit the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and pray the rosary more and more,” she said. “When I arrived at Franciscan University, I began to go to daily Mass. With the help of the saints, the Catholic community that surrounded me and the joyful testimony of the sisters I saw on campus, the Lord, through His grace, opened my eyes and my heart to the beauty of consecrated life.
“Soon I discovered that He was calling me to give myself completely to Him through a total consecration in union with Mary.”
Sister Caeles Grace María entered the order on Jan. 1, 2014, in what was then the closed Steubenville St. Pius X Catholic Church, adjacent to the rectory that was being rented by the sisters. She was the second postulant to enter the new Marian Fountain of Living Faith Novitiate in Steubenville, the sisters’ American novitiate.
After their two initial years of prenovitiate, the two sisters traveled to Spain to continue their preparation for religious consecration in the order’s international novitiate in Madrid, joining 16 other novices from seven novitiates.
On Aug. 28, 2017, Sister Caeles Grace María made her first religious profession in Madrid at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the chapel at the order’s motherhouse. She was assigned to the Spanish novitiate as an auxiliary sister for initial formation for the following two years before returning to the United States to form part of the community in Steubenville and, as of October 2022, in Columbus.
Having finished the years of temporal profession of the religious vows, she was admitted to profess her perpetual vows in Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Oratory in Steubenville, the former St. Pius the X Church, now reopened and dedicated to the order’s patroness.
For more information about the Daughters of Holy Mary of the Heart of Jesus or their apostolate, visit their website, hsmcj.org, or contact them at (614) 986-7007.