The Vocation of Women in the Augustinian Recollect Family
This is the first article published by Carmen Montejo, Sister General of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, in which she reflects on the meaning of International Women’s Day from an evangelical and Augustinian perspective. In this post, she invites us to look at four figures who illuminate March 8, 2026: the Samaritan woman from the Gospel and three women from the Augustinian Recollect Family—Mariana de San José, Magdalena of Nagasaki, and Cleusa Carolina Rody Coelho—whose testimonies continue to inspire the life of the Church and the defense of human dignity.
March 8: Memory, Struggle, and Hope
Every March 8, the world turns its gaze toward women: toward our struggles, achievements, and also toward the injustices we still suffer.
It is a day that commemorates the struggle of so many women for equality, dignity, and the full recognition of their rights—a struggle that spans social, political, and also ecclesial spheres. This date compels us to ask what place we women occupy today in our communities, in society, and in history.
But it is also a day that forces us to look at the present. In many parts of the world, women continue to be victims of violence, exclusion, and injustice. In current armed conflicts, women are especially exposed to violence, exploitation, or repression. Wars—as history has shown so many times—hit those who are already in a situation of vulnerability particularly hard. And alongside armed conflicts, in various social, political, and even ecclesial contexts, many women continue to pay a high price for defending their freedom and dignity.
In the face of this reality, March 8 cannot be merely a symbolic commemoration. It is also an invitation to return to the message of the Gospel and to discover which stories, voices, and testimonies can help us today to build more just and humane communities.
The Samaritan Woman: A Woman Who Dialogues and Proclaims
Jesus of Nazareth introduced a radically new way of understanding relationships between people into history, breaking down social, religious, and cultural barriers deeply rooted in his time. Among those barriers were also those affecting women.
The Gospel for today, Sunday, March 8, 2026, offers us a profoundly significant image: Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:5-42). The initial gesture is already surprising: Jesus addresses her and, making himself in need of that woman, asks her for help: “Give me a drink.” For the mindset of the time, this simple gesture transgresses several social norms at once: a Jewish man did not usually address an unknown woman in public, much less a Samaritan woman, belonging to a people despised by the Jews.
However, Jesus does not only initiate the conversation. He also establishes a deep dialogue with her. This episode reveals something essential: Jesus does not place the woman in a secondary position nor does he silence her. The Samaritan woman dialogues, asks questions, reflects, and progressively understands who the one before her is, and finally becomes a witness before her people.
The Samaritan woman, in fact, ends up becoming the first proclaimer of Jesus in her city: the woman who had gone to the well alone ends up gathering her entire people to tell them what she has discovered. The Gospel thus shows us that woman is not only a recipient of salvation but also an active subject of the mission and the word—an interlocutor, disciple, and witness.
This evangelical scene reminds us that the Christian novelty did not consist solely of a spiritual message, but also of a new and different way of understanding the dignity of every person.
Women Who Embody the Gospel in History
Throughout the history of the Church, many women have embodied this evangelical novelty with their lives, their faith, and their commitment. In every era, women have emerged who are capable of transforming their environment through prayer and work for the defense of human dignity, showing that the vocation of women is not reduced to a passive role, but can become an impulse for new and abundant life for the community.
In the Augustinian Recollect Family, we also find testimonies that clearly express this evangelical intuition and show us how the Augustinian charism has been lived and transmitted with strength by women.
On this March 8, we want to focus specifically on three of those faces. Three women who allow us to travel a long path, not only to engage in historical memory but to discover in them models of Christian life that continue to illuminate our present.
Mariana de San José: The Transforming Power of Interiority
The first is Mother Mariana de San José, foundress of the Augustinian Recollect Sisters. Her life shows how Augustinian interiority can become a creative force within the Church.
Through prayer, discernment, and spiritual accompaniment, Mariana knew how to open a new path for many women who sought to live the search for God with radicality. Her story reminds us that many profound transformations are born in what is apparently invisible: in prayer, in inner reflection, and in daily fidelity.
Magdalena of Nagasaki: Fidelity unto Martyrdom
The second face is Saint Magdalena of Nagasaki, a young Japanese woman who, amidst the persecution of Christians in Japan, chose to remain faithful to her faith even unto martyrdom.
Her testimony reminds us that spiritual strength knows no age or condition. In a culture where Christianity was persecuted, Magdalena supported hidden Christians and proclaimed with her life that faith can be lived with courage and freedom. Her story shows how fidelity to the Gospel can also become a radical form of freedom.
Cleusa Carolina Rody Coelho: Mission That Becomes Justice
The third is Sister Cleusa Carolina Rody Coelho, an Augustinian Recollect missionary in the Brazilian Amazon.
Her vocation took shape in service to the most vulnerable: indigenous communities, rural workers, the sick, and prisoners. From a deep life of prayer, her commitment to justice led her to accompany those suffering from exploitation and violence in land conflicts.
Her defense of the impoverished ended up costing her life, but her testimony proves that Christian faith cannot be separated from the commitment to justice.
A Vocation That Continues to Transform the Church
Mariana, Magdalena, and Cleusa: three women with different vocations—contemplative nun, committed laywoman, and missionary religious sister—in three very different historical contexts and yet with the same spiritual root: the search for God from Augustinian interiority and the longing for the Gospel to transform life and history.
Their lives proclaim that the vocation of women in the Church cannot be reduced to a secondary or merely auxiliary role. Wherever women have lived the Gospel with radicality, paths of renewal, care, and justice have emerged.
In a time when the Church is called to review its structures and dynamics, and to heal its relationships, the testimony of these three women takes on special relevance. It reminds us that the history of the Church has been written not only through major institutional decisions but also through the daily dedication, courage, and spiritual intelligence of many women.
Their lives invite us to foster more fraternal communities, where the dignity, voice, and participation of women are fully recognized. Only then can we once again approach that community of equals dreamed of by Jesus, in which every person—woman or man—can offer their gifts for the transformation of the world and the building of the Kingdom of God here and now.
Perhaps that is why the scene at the well of Sychar remains so relevant. In that simple encounter, by a well in Samaria, Jesus opened a space for dialogue where a woman could ask, think, believe, and proclaim.
In a world that made women invisible and relegated them to silence, the Gospel placed them at the center of the encounter with God and the transmission of faith.
And since then, throughout the centuries, many other women have continued to carry that water to their own peoples: from the monasteries of 17th-century Spain to the persecuted communities of Japan or the villages of the Amazon.
Give me a drink: when God thirsts for us