GUATEMALA: Sisters caring for forgotten and poor communities

Religious Sisters in Guatemala have shared their stories of dedication and sacrifice supporting indigenous people and bringing the Gospel to places which are so remote priests can only come to celebrate Mass at most once a year.

Three Sisters of the Guadalupe Province of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have been working hard for more than a decade to provide help to ethnic Mayan communities and others in need.

Based in the Boca Costa region, south-west Guatemala – home to 21 indigenous peoples – the Sisters often have to trek long distances on unpaved mountain roads to carry out their mission.

Sister Aura Marina López told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN): “For years, these communities have lived in neglect, struggling against extreme poverty and lack of access to basic services.

“Most of the population makes its living off small-scale coffee plantations, and many migrate due to the lack of available land, or the impossibility of finding steady employment.”

Sister López added that, despite increased challenges over the past 10 years, the Mayan people are “strongly committed to keeping alive the testimony of the experience of the risen Christ and show admirable faith and courage”.

She highlighted that priests only tend to visit these communities to celebrate Mass once a year “in the best-case scenario” because it takes “eight hours to get here from the parish of Tajumulco”.

She added that her congregation decided to stay with the faithful locally when “in 2012, after assessing the situation, the then parish priest of Santa Isabel, in Tajumulco, asked for our help, and so we ran a month-long mission.

“Following that experience, seeing how necessary it was to keep accompanying the faithful in the area, we decided to stay for good, to support the parish priest.”

For seven years, before their house was built in 2021, the Sisters stayed in the homes of generous local families.

Initially, they were not even able to afford to buy the traditional material used to make their religious habits – until ACN started supporting their mission.

Sister López said that the financial help her congregation receive from ACN “has been a true blessing”, allowing them “to keep up our work among the poor and needy”.

She concluded: “We are deeply grateful for your kindness and generosity, and we offer up our humble prayers for the intentions of your benefactors.”

With thanks to Lucía Ballester