June 29, 2023

When Mabel Barerro finished her law studies, she attended an Emmaus retreat. She was already living her faith, but that is when her image of God began to change. “However, only when I met the consecrated women of Regnum Christi could I feel a relationship with Jesus in a personal way,” she tells us. Every time this young Columbian woman left a retreat, she started to have an identity crisis, “because I felt, in a way that was strange for me, that I didn’t just have to help out on three-day retreats, but that I had to dedicate my whole life to Jesus.” With her discernment period over, Mabel made her final vows in Columbia on June 24, 2023. We interviewed her just before that.

• Without a doubt, the Lord has done an intense work in me if I look at myself in the moment when I entered the Summer Discernment Course and now eight years later… The Lord has humanized me.
• I believe that everyone needs a place where they can be vulnerable, and my community is that safe place for me where I have been able to be myself.
• Number 12 of our Constitutions defines what the spousal relationship is very well: “A Consecrated Woman lives from an experience of the personal, real, passionate and faithful love of Christ.”

Mabel is Columbian. She was born in Bogotá 32 years ago. She studied law and was an attorney by profession, but after an Emmaus retreat, her life took a turn. Many questions arose in her head and her heart, but she tells us that with the help of the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, she came to know Jesus, “and this was even more impactful for me, because the more I discovered, the more I felt myself called to follow it, and the more I got to know Regnum Christi and the consecrated women, the more I realized that the personal experience of Jesus’ love is what gathers us and invites us to total self-giving.” Mabel’s story is the story of a woman who met Christ and sold everything to follow this treasure that she found after college.

How do you feel in these days, about to make your final vows? Does Christ continue to surprise you on this homestretch?

Since the moment when I found out the date, the nerves have intensified, but it’s special because they are the nerves of knowing that we’re so close to giving a “yes” forever, and I think anyone who is in a similar situation experiences it. These reactions tell me what this relationship is: I am giving myself forever to a living Christ. He is someone real who is everywhere, and of course he continues to surprise me: He shows me details that make me see clearly that he is an active part in all this, even in the organization of the Mass, the selection of the date, etc.

How did you get to know Christ and Regnum Christi?

I knew from a young age that God existed; we lived the faith in my home, and I also studied in a high school run by nuns and then in a secular school with a special devotion to Our Lady of Fatima. So I can say that I always had an idea of God, but it wasn’t anything close for me.

When I finished college, I began to attend Emmaus, and there, this idea of God began to change. However, only after I met the consecrated women of Regnum Christi did I feel a relationship with Jesus in a personal way. And this ultimately caught my attention. It was a novelty for me.

Almost every day I reflected on what it means to have profound happiness, which parties or winning a legal appeal didn’t bring me, but a three-day retreat did.

How did the Lord tell you that he wanted you as a consecrated woman in Regnum Christi? Do you remember how your “yes” to the Lord happened?

I was very happy working as an attorney. I liked what I was doing, but I began to feel that something was missing, and that something in me began to fill up every time I served in Emmaus. Then, every time a retreat ended, I started to have an identity crisis, because I felt, in a way that was strange for me, that I had to do more than just help on three-day retreats, I had to dedicate my life to Jesus. But I didn’t like these invitations I was sensing because I didn’t imagine myself in anything that wasn’t practicing law. I tried to avoid the issue, but Jesus kept insisting.

Then this started to become stronger and more frequent; almost every day I reflected on what it meant to have profound happiness, which a party or winning an appeal didn’t bring me, but a three-day retreat did, and I think this question about happiness was the door God used to present to me a life choice that I wouldn’t have even considered.

The problem was that to me, it wasn’t logical that the Lord would want me as a nun, since I didn’t think I was the “type.” I couldn’t imagine myself in a convent at all. But then, when I met a consecrated woman, the way she spoke about Jesus attracted me strongly and helped me to live my relationship with him more naturally. So I set aside the topic of vocation, and I dedicated myself to get to know Jesus with her help. And this was even more impactful for me, because the more I found out, the more I felt myself called to follow, and the more I got to know Regnum Christi and the consecrated women, the more I realized that there are no “types,” that each one is different from the others, and that the personal experience of Jesus’ love is what gathers us and invites us to total self-giving. And after a few years, I decided to take the step, to tell him “yes.”

How did your family react?

I think I shared the news badly because I had never really told them about what I was experiencing. As the topic was so strange for me, I preferred not to speak to them about it. When I had decided to do a missionary year in order to discern more seriously, I told my siblings first; they were surprised but supportive. With their help, I told my parents. It understandably surprised them; maybe it was hardest for my dad because he didn’t understand why I would give up my career for something like this.

You studied law. How has your professional formation helped you in your vocation?

Yes, I studied law, I graduated and I practiced in a law firm in Columbia for two years. As a consecrated woman, I have understood that studying law has been very important for me as a person (more than professionally). My career runs in my blood, and I couldn’t identify or understand myself without this aspect of my life; the Lord certainly knew this and gave me the opportunity to study, enjoy and assimilate it.

Now I am only a year and a half into my apostolic internship, and I believe I have been able to contribute a little in juridical matters.

How do you view yourself from when you said “yes” to God to now, when you are going to make your final vows? What has changed in your life?

Without a doubt, the Lord has done an intense work in me if I look at myself in the moment when I entered the Summer Discernment Course in Monterrey and now, eight years later; yes, there is a giant change: The Lord has humanized me. I believe that I am now a more “real” person. The passage from Ezekiel about changing the heart of stone for a heart of flesh could define this process a little. The most moving thing is knowing that he will continue doing it.

Changing the subject, what is the community of consecrated women you live with like? How does it help you confirm that God really wants you here?

My community has been very important in my vocational process; it has been said many times, but that’s how I live it. I believe that everyone needs a place where they can be vulnerable, and my community is that safe place for me where I have been able to be myself, where I have been wrong and they have helped me, where I am constantly learning from the others, where I have been able to be very free and, being myself, I have been able to see how my consecrated personality has “flourished.”

What role has the Regnum Christi family—Legionaries, Consecrated Women, Lay Consecrated Men, and lay members—played in your vocational experience up until making your final vows?

The experience I had in Chile as a missionary is significant here, because in the section I was in (Dehisa) there was a lot of teamwork among lay consecrated men, Legionaries, lay members, and consecrated women. This was my first powerful experience of Regnum Christi; it was experiencing that it’s about family, that there is no way to understand myself as a Consecrated Woman without the other Regnum Christi members.

What does it mean for a Consecrated Woman to have a spousal relationship with Jesus? What characterizes this relationship?

Number 12 of our Constitutions defines what the spousal relationship is very well: “A Consecrated Woman lives from an experience of the personal, real, passionate and faithful love of Christ.”

It is a relationship between two living people; it’s not something abstract, but real, and also, it is given by Christ’s initiative. (That is very impactful.) I am able to give myself forever only because I know there is Someone I can give myself to—I will not be alone. Rather, I will have a spousal relationship with Christ, which is different from that of two spouses in marriage; it is a spousality that is understood not by logic, but the perspective of faith.

There is no way to understand myself as a Consecrated Woman without the other Regnum Christi members.

What would you say to a young woman or man who is discerning whether God is calling them to consecrated life?

When I was discerning whether or not to take the step, everything spoke to me of the vocation to the consecrated life, and it wore me out because I didn’t want to accept it, and plus, I didn’t like the typical phrases on the pamphlets, such as “Be not afraid,” “Come and see,” “Christ doesn’t take anything away, but he gives you everything,” etc., etc. … All this rubbed me the wrong way, but now that I think about it, these things only occur to me because, even though they sound like clichés, the surprising thing is that they’re true! I would like to say something more elaborate, but I can only say, “Be not afraid,” “Come and see,” “Christ doesn’t take anything away, but he gives you everything…”

Word association: what comes to mind when I give you a word?

• The past: mercy
• The present: nerves
• The future: trust
• Final vows: totality
• Communion: constant
• The others: gift
• Columbia: beloved homeland
• Layperson: commitment
• Legionary of Christ: priest
• Consecrated Woman: sister
• Consecrated Lay Man: testimony
• Your family: love
• Jesus: assurance
• Ring: symbol
• Studies before consecration: law
• Mission: making Christ present
• Church: Body of Christ
• Suffering: constant presence of Christ
• Life: eternity
• Apostolate: sending out
• A song: “Si tú me lo pides (If You Ask Me)” by Pedro Capó
• A book: The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas
• A movie: Worth
• Your favorite color: Blue
• Your favorite number of the Statutes of Regnum Christi: 7 and 8
• Your favorite number of the Constitutions of the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi: 12
• Your favorite saint: Augustine

Translated from the original Spanish publication.