Holy Cross sister makes Perpetual Profession

Friday, Jun. 05, 2020

SALT LAKE CITY — The Diocese of Salt Lake City celebrated a unique moment on May 30, as Holy Cross Sister Laura Tiburcio Santos made her Perpetual Profession in the chapel of the Pastoral Center.

Traditionally, Holy Cross sisters make their profession of vows to the president of the congregation at the religious order’s motherhouse at St. Mary’s in Notre Dame, Ind. However, because of the travel restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, Sr. Laura made her vows in Utah. Sr. Patrice McGee, CSC, who teaches at Kearns-St. Ann School, was delegated to accept Sr. Laura’s vows.

The Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross is an international religious order whose members work in education, health care and various other ministries. 

Sr. Laura was born and raised in Altotonga, Veracruz, Mexico. She has two brothers, one sister and three nephews. After finishing high school, she joined the Missionaries of Saint Therese of Lisieux, and ministered in Spain and in Mexico. 

In Mexico, she worked as the director of Parochial Catholic Charities and Youth Ministry. That experience “was fundamental in my decision to study social work and get involved in social justice,” she said. 

After “a serious discernment process,” she left the Missionaries congregation and attended a “Come and See” week with the Holy Cross sisters.

“What caught my attention was the fact that sisters didn’t wear a habit or uniform, and that most of the ministries were directed toward social justice,” she said. 

She joined Holy Cross in 2012. In 2015, she came to Utah, volunteering at the diocesan Office of Hispanic Ministry, providing spirituality workshops to Hispanic leaders in the diocese. A year later, she began studying at Salt Lake Community College. She  earned an associate’s degree in social work, then went on to attend the University of Utah.  Last month, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work and a minor in sociology. 

The chapel in which Sr. Laura’s Perpetual Profession was celebrated held only 10 people, in accordance with social distancing requirements called for by the pandemic. The day was unseasonably warm, and everyone wore face masks, again because COVID-19.

Commenting on the uncomfortable conditions, Msgr. Colin F. Bircumshaw, vicar general, who presided at the Mass, said, “Everything is a bit of a sacrifice today.” But, he added, the discomfort was “symbolic of what Sister’s agreed to so willingly, so generously.”

For the liturgical readings, Sr. Laura chose the Song of Songs 8:6-7 and Matthew 26:6-13. Msgr. Bircumshaw said those readings delighted and surprised him, because “they reveal the maturity of her ministerial readiness.” 

The Song of Songs reflects “the covenant of love that God has made with us,” he said, and a mature person “comes to the point where they say, ‘Now I have found that, and only that, which can fulfill me – the love that can fulfill me.’” 

A consecrated religious “has found the face of her Beloved and gives herself as a gift to God to love,” he said.

Tying the Gospel reading, about the woman who anoints Christ with perfume, to Sr. Laura’s ministry, he said, “All that you will do in the service of God’s people will be like anointing the head and the body of Christ in the world today,” but added that this will not be an easy undertaking.

Sr. Laura said she chose the  Gospel reading because it depicts a vocation of anointing Jesus and the people she works with. Holy Cross sisters “anoint Jesus in any way we can do,” she said.

After the celebration, she said it was more meaningful to have made her profession in Salt Lake City rather than at Notre Dame “because I’m among people who know me – all of them have known me since I came here.”  

For the next year, Sr. Laura will remain in Utah as she completes an internship and begins pursuing a master’s degree in social work.