“Good morning, my name is Marlé Uribe, and I am a Missionary of the Assumption. May I share with you and your family the Word of God, or shall we pray together for what your heart most desires?” This is the message we offer when visiting homes during our Holy Week missions. The Assumption Institute of Querétaro is actively present in San Ildefonso, a small farming and pottery community in the municipality of Amealco, Querétaro, Mexico.
Many years ago, the Religious of the Assumption had a house in San Ilde, on the Hill of the Mission. As women of service, they bore witness and shared the Gospel with those in need, until they were called to serve elsewhere. Today, it is students and teachers from the Assumption Institute who continue their missionary path.
Preparing for the Holy Week mission makes us aware of our call to be salt and light of the message we wish to share. We prepare the themes, plan activities around the evening catecheses, and the entire school participates in a campaign to collect food, medicine, clothing, and educational materials for the people of San Ilde. We also take our scarf, the cross of the Assumption, and our missionary manual as symbols of the call we feel.
In this way, we form a true missionary community — no longer students and teachers, but brothers and sisters in mission. We live together from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, and the person who returns home is not the same as the one who arrived. The experience is deeply transformative. We share tasks, care for one another, pray, walk, listen, and reflect together. Each evening we hold a spiritual rereading, recognizing God’s presence everywhere.
As a village rich in tradition, San Ilde celebrates the Holy Days with devotion: the washing of feet, the Way of the Cross, the adoration of the cross, the new fire, and the joy of proclaiming that Christ is risen.
It is an intense week of physical effort—long walks under the burning sun, dust from the dry, desert-like terrain, visits to remote homes. Yet every smile received makes it worthwhile. A simple taco of beans or a glass of water offered with generosity fills the heart.
Physical fatigue gives way to emotional exhaustion, as each encounter softens the heart. We enter homes in deep poverty, witness the absence of essentials like water or electricity, and become more humble. Connecting with people and their stories moves the soul: we see solitude, share tears, offer encouragement, and pray together.
Despite all the weariness, something difficult to explain remains—a deep desire to continue giving oneself to the mission, to keep visiting, praying, and caring.
Perhaps it is as Doña María says—a woman of advanced age, frail in body but unshakable in faith, living alone with her bedridden son: “Wherever I go, Jesus finds me.”
To be a missionary with the Assumption is to prepare one’s heart to offer the Word and to pray through action. It is to live the hope of a transforming experience. It is to know that “Wherever I go, Jesus finds me.”
Marlé Uribe
Missionary and Psychopedagogue, Assumption Institute of Querétaro