‘So in love with God’

Catholic Sisters Week March 8-14

Young women share local stories of their call to religious life

Darby Heard’s path to a religious life started with a simple question prompted by a blossoming faith throughout high school.

“I wonder if this could be something I might be called to?” she wondered.

Discernment and prayer confirmed that calling for Heard, who now resides with the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Thérèse of the Infant Jesus in Oklahoma City. With the annual arrival of Catholic Sisters Week, spanning March 8-14, perhaps more will answer such a call, religious sisters across the country gather and share a more modern experience by highlighting the diversity and impact of their work, ultimately hoping to shift the perception of religious life.

Locally, examples for young women discerning such possibilities exists with Heard and with Sister Viviana de la Inmaculada López de Loera, who professed her final religious vows last year in the Congregation of Carmelite Missionaries of Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, then moved to Arizona to begin her mission.

When asked “Who inspires you to be a religious sister or to discern the calling,” Heard and de Loera, two young religious women from the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offer their stories of discernment, prayer and the ability to listen. 

Heard, a 2013 graduate of Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School, first felt called to discern a vocation in the Church as a high school freshman. She called the discernment of a calling to religious life a “prayerful process” that for her was inspired by the time she spent near the Eucharist. 

Heard attended Saint John Nepomuk Catholic Church in Yukon and said her desire to learn more about religious life grew as her relationship with Christ grew. 

“I was a cantor and sang at weekend Mass,” she said. “Doing that really helped me grow in my faith. I grew in my prayer life and in awareness of the saints when I was in high school.” 

It was then that she asked herself that question of a possible calling.

“I spent more time listening and really listening to where the Lord wanted me to be at that moment,” she said.

As Heard continues the discernment process, she is carefully considering the commitment required to, as she says, “enter directly into a relationship with God.” The one question she strives to answer each day is simple: “How is he asking me to love him?”

In the meantime, Heard shares her joy to be “in a house with Jesus in it, growing in my prayer routine and listening to his word.”

Sister Viviana grew up in Norman and attended Saint Joseph Catholic Church. Her journey of discernment began in March 2015 after returning from leading a young adult retreat in Oklahoma. She returned “so in Love with God and wanting to share the love of God with others.”

After graduating high school two months later, she attended another retreat in California. It was there that she met a sister who invited her to visit the community and live with them while she discerned her calling. 

“I left everything and whenever I left home, honestly, I knew I was not coming back,” she said. “In my heart, I knew I had arrived home.”

Sister Viviana’s message to any young woman even considering exploring religious life:

“Do not be afraid!”

Sally Linhart is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.


Photo: (Above) Darby Heard, center, attended Mass in October 2025 at the Bl. Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City. Photo Chris Porter/Sooner Catholic. 


Sr. Viviana de la Inmaculada López de Loera. Photo provided.