Sr. Maria Jacinta Weide publicly celebrated 25 years as a bride of Christ during the holy sacrifice of the Mass on Saturday, March 21, 2026, at St. Joseph, Andale.

Sr. Maria Jacinta, the daughter of Steve and Lupe Weide, grew up in Arkansas City, where she and her family attended Sacred Heart Parish. The jubilee was celebrated in conjunction with the first profession of vows by Sr. Benedicta Marie Timmermeyer, IHM. 

After Holy Communion but with Christ still Eucharistically present within her, Sr. Maria Jacinta knelt in the sanctuary and renewed her vows. Sr. Maria Jacinta recounted that more than 25 years ago, when she entered the convent, she knew the Lord was promising to fulfill all her desires and that, now, the vows she renewed reflected his promise abundantly fulfilled. After her renewal, Sr. Maria Jacinta received a jubilee crucifix and a papal blessing as reminders of Christ’s irrevocable fidelity to her and of her faithful response to him and to his Church.

Several of those present found it very meaningful to celebrate the first profession and the jubilee together, to witness Sr. Benedicta Marie’s joyful and fervent beginning to her consecrated religious life and to witness Sr. Maria Jactina’s enduring and ever-deepening fiat, each made possible and even vibrant by God’s grace. Their lives reflect an excerpt from the Essential Elements in Church Teaching on Religious Life in which we read that “in (Mary’s) fiat and magnificat religious life finds the totality of its surrender to and the thrill of its joy in the consecratory action of God.”

May this fiat surrender and this magnificat joy be ever present within these sisters as they seek to persevere in the life and charism of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and in the deepening imitation of Mary’s heart as one which wholly receives God’s gift and offers him her whole self in return.