Wedy Dacut offers a concise account of her vocational journey — from her early encounters with the Focolare to the personal sacrifices that shaped her response to God’s call. Her story traces a path marked by faith, family, and quiet perseverance, revealing the depth of commitment behind a life entrusted to a greater purpose — “that all may be one.”

I first met the Focolare in the summer of 1966 at a Mariapolis gathering in Tagaytay. What struck me immediately was the joy — the family atmosphere, the simplicity, the effort to live Jesus’ words on unity and mutual love. I could feel God’s presence among us. But only later did I discover the “secret” behind that joy.

I grew up with my mother. My father, a US Navy serviceman, left for Hawaii when I was a year old and never returned. My mother never spoke ill of him. She simply worked, prayed, and brought me with her to church every day. The church and the school beside it became my second home. It was there that I discovered that God truly is a Father.

As I grew older, I began asking what God wanted for my life. A parish priest once asked if I wanted to enter the convent, then immediately said, “No, you cannot leave your mother.” So I thought, maybe marriage is my path.

Later, as a young teacher, I met someone who seemed to match everything I had written in my diary about the man I hoped to marry. We went to Mass together every day at the chapel of Ateneo de Manila. Then one day, after Communion, I felt Jesus speak to my heart with surprising clarity: “This heart is mine.” The voice was so strong I turned to him and asked, “Did you say anything?” He shook his head. When it happened again in the following days, I realized that it was God who was calling me.

Ending the relationship was painful, but I had to be honest. “I’m not choosing someone else,” I told him. “I simply feel that God has different plans for me.”

Still, I struggled. I was my mother’s only child, and we were deeply close. A co‑teacher introduced me to a “secular institute” — consecration without leaving home — but I soon realized it wasn’t my path.

Everything became clear in the summer of 1971, at another Mariapolis. I felt a strong attraction to the ideal of unity, the “great attraction of modern times.” I spoke to Giovanna, an Italian “focolarina,” about the call I felt. She told me, “Live the present moment. Jesus said: ‘To those who love… I will manifest myself.’ (John 14:21)” And He did. At the end of that Mariapolis, I knew: God was calling me to consecrate myself to Him as a focolarina.[1]

But answering that call meant leaving my mother. When I finally told her I was going to start my formation as a focolarina, she cried heavily. The first night I stayed at the focolare center, she came to the gate sobbing. In tears, I watched her from the window upstairs, while the words of Jesus echoed in my heart: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life”(Matthew 19:29).

Every day, I went home for lunch. One day, as she cried again, I found the courage to say, “Nay, if you love me, you will want my happiness. And it is here, in the focolare, where God is calling me.” As she tried to dry her tears, I kissed her goodbye.

And God did not forget His promise of the hundredfold. As she grew older and weaker, we found a place for her near the focolare center where I was living. Those last years were spent loving and serving her until God called her home.

Two years later, I felt it clearly: the time had come. I was ready to leave for my formation as a focolarina in Loppiano, the little town of the Focolare in Italy.

In 1972, Chiara Lubich, the foundress of the Focolare, gave my name a new meaning that has stayed with me ever since: Wedded to Jesus Forsaken.[2] Only later did I understand how deeply those words would guide my life.

Wedelina Dacut

[1] A woman who has consecrated her life to God, following Chiara Lubich in the vocation to the focolare.

[2] Refers to Jesus who, on the cross, felt abandoned by His Father, and cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)