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October 25, 2018Calls to a religious vocation can be as varied and diverse as the people who respond to them. The daughter of Don and Denise Heard, Darby Heard, formed her love of the Eucharist as a child attending Saint John Nepomuk in Yukon. When she left home to attend East Central University, she called Saint Joseph in Ada her spiritual home. She heard the vocational call to the convent at both parishes.
Darby Heard will be entering another “spiritual home” far from Oklahoma near South Bend, Indiana. She is entering the order of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Perpetual Adoration.
Continuing to discern and prepare for vows, she will have a great deal of time in formation. She will be a postulant for one year, followed by two years as a novice, and then five years of temporary vows. After those eight years of discernment, she will take her final vows.
Heard is talented in many areas, including art and music. Her portrait of Blessed Stanley Rother she painted seventh grade hangs in the rectory in Santiago Atitlan. She strives to create work that inspires meditation upon Christ's love (some of her work can be viewed at www.darbyheard.wordpress.com). She also has a great voice and has sung in many church choirs and served as a cantor at both parishes.
She had been listening to God’s call for some time when she did a summer internship at Notre Dame. Following the internship, she got the opportunity to visit the nearby convent and noticed something about the sisters who lived there.
“The sisters had an intense joy in their love for Christ that I had never seen before. They also had an intense peace about them and a love of their vocations,” she said.
As she was discerning, Heard received much guidance from Saint Joseph youth group leaders, Doug and Sandy Poe.
Sandy Poe said, “It has been a very special privilege and blessing to watch Darby pray and discern her vocation throughout the four-plus years as a college student in our Saint Joseph college and young adult group. She is an inspiration to Catholic and non-Catholic students at ECU as well as to people of all ages in our Saint Joseph church community. Darby lives her faith with passion, authenticity and deep sincerity. She evangelizes by living what she deeply believes and through encouraging others by example to pursue their own relationship with God.”
In addition, she said, her fellow students from ECU and Saint Joseph always were there for her and her two brothers, Dakota and Donovan.
Most important is the charism of perpetual adoration, which fuels the works of service that the sisters perform.
“I absolutely love that Jesus will always be just down the hall, and I can visit Him at any time!”
Charles Albert is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.
