Young architect abandons life plans for religious life, joins Missionaries of Charity

Fatima Partida is at the Vatican. She studied archeology in Rome for the fall semester of 2019. (Courtesy photo/Fatima Partida)

By Emily Woodham

Staff Writer

Fatima Partida had foolproof plans. “I was to become an architect, get married and have kids,” she said.

In the spring of 2022, those plans were unfolding as intended. She had an internship with an architecture firm in downtown Boise and was set to graduate with her master’s degree in architecture from the University of Idaho in just two months. She and her boyfriend were talking about getting engaged in the summer and marrying a year after that.

“Everything was perfect until a Mass during Lent in March of 2022,” she said. “I was at the Cathedral with my boyfriend, went up and received Communion and then went back to the pew. As soon as I knelt down, there was this deep stirring in my heart. I just knew it was the Lord telling me to slow down. As if He was saying, ‘Pump the brakes.’”

At that moment during Mass at St. John’s Cathedral in Boise, Fatima knew what the Lord was once again calling her to discern—religious life.

“I first heard the call to religious life when I was 18,” she explained.

Fatima Partida prays during the Stations of the Cross at Table Rock in Boise. (Courtesy photo/Fatima Partida)

However, at that time, her faith was cultural.

“I was born in California and raised in Mexico. Our family went to Mass and prayed together, and I just went along with it.”

Fatima’s parents, Maria de Lourdes and Humberto Partida, always had a strong faith. When Maria de Lourdes was pregnant with Fatima, she had serious complications.

“The doctor told my mother to abort me when she was just three months pregnant because he just knew I wouldn’t survive, but she refused,” Fatima said.

Maria de Lourdes, who didn’t know if she was pregnant with a boy or a girl, prayed every day that if Our Lady of Fatima would save her baby from death, she would give her baby in the service of the Church to the priesthood or religious life.

“She told me about this when I was a teenager, and I used to get really upset. It felt like an arranged marriage or a curse, but really, what my mom wanted was God’s will for my life. She never pushed me one way or the other. She just prayed for me.”

Fatima first felt a clear call to religious life in 2016 while at a youth conference in Washington. She was 18.

“They asked all the teenagers who felt called to the priesthood or religious life to stand up so they could pray over them. I began feeling this unbearable heat in my entire body, but I didn’t want to stand up. Then the person at the microphone said that you might feel a burning sensation or heat and that it was the Holy Spirit.”

Fatima, however, was afraid of what her friends might think. She also wasn’t convinced that she was meant to be a religious sister.

“I stood up because the burning was so bad I thought I was going to die if I didn’t.”

When Fatima went home, she was worried that she had to go straight to a convent.

“I was supposed to start college in just a few weeks at the University of Idaho in Moscow, and I didn’t know what to do,” she recalled. “But a priest explained to me that I just needed to discern what God was calling me to. He said I should just go on with my plans to go to college.”

While at U of I, she began going to the St. Augustine Catholic Student Center.

“In talking with Father Chase Hasenoehrl, I realized I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus,” she said.

Father Hasenoehrl encouraged her to start by getting to know Jesus because “if you don’t know someone, you can’t love them.”

Fatima Partida, second from the left, is with her older sister and two younger brothers. (Courtesy photo/Fatima Partida)

Fatima began going to daily Mass, Adoration and Bible studies.

“I was very involved my freshman year,” she continued. “But then as I got into my major, I became very busy with my studies and college social life. So eventually I became a ‘transactional Catholic’: I was just going to Jesus in prayer when I needed Him for something.”

Fatima continued to feel lukewarm in her faith until the summer of 2019, when she went to London to study architecture.

“I found myself wanting God more while I was there because He was unavailable to me. I was used to being able to see Him in the chapel at St. Augustine’s whenever I wanted, but in London, most of the churches are Anglican. I had to travel 40 minutes to get to a Catholic church and to visit Jesus in the tabernacle.”

After her summer semester in London, she studied architecture in Rome for the fall semester.

“I went from a famine in London to a feast in Rome,” she said.

Surrounded by the churches and religious art, Fatima’s faith was renewed, but she still did not accept a call to religious life.

After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in 2020, she immediately began working on her master’s degree. She went to Boise in 2021 to begin her internship and continue studies at the Boise campus of U of I.

“For our thesis project, we could design whatever we wanted. I chose to design a campus for people experiencing homelessness, with a rehab center, transitional housing, job training, mental health care and other areas to help people.”

As a part of her research, she volunteered at Corpus Christi House (now called “Corpus Commons”) in downtown Boise.

“I started to encounter how helpless and how little I was. Every Saturday, I would help prepare food, hand out food and talk to them. I found out that so many people become homeless because of tragedies, through no fault of their own. Any of us can become homeless at any time.”

Fatima also noticed that it was rare someone left Corpus Commons because they were able to find housing and a job.

“Most of the time, if someone was not there on a Saturday, it was because they went to prison, were sick, in the hospital or died. I started to see how there was no human way that could help them overcome. Truly, the only person who was able to help them was God.”

After feeling the call again in Lent of 2022, Fatima did her best to ignore it.

Fatima Partida is at a crossroads on the Camino de Santiago. One direction points to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fatima. (Courtesy photo/Fatima Partida)

“I knew the Lord was calling me to discern religious life, but I didn’t want to at that time. I was so angry at the Lord because I felt like He was coming in and ruining my plans.”

However, she began to feel like her heart was divided and she needed to choose.

“I broke up with my boyfriend. I told him, and it was true, that I loved him, but I needed to figure out what the Lord was asking me to do. My boyfriend actually became Catholic after that. He went into OCIA and became Catholic at Easter 2023,” she said. “It kind of made it harder to continue to discern religious life. I kept thinking, ‘Come on, God! He’s Catholic now!’”

But Fatima knew she needed to persevere in her decision to follow the Lord.

“I asked the Lord what He wanted for my life. While praying before the Eucharist, I just continually heard the words, ‘I Thirst.’ It felt like an invitation to let Jesus into my heart. He was thirsting for me to trust Him and for a childlike dependency on Him.”

On Nov. 21, 2023, the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Fatima finally said yes to Jesus.

“I was at a retreat with the Sisters of Mary Morning Star in Minnesota. I was in the chapel, and I looked at Jesus. I knew He was asking me to give Him my entire life. I said ‘yes.’ I think of it as that was when He proposed to me, and I said ‘yes.’”

For two years, Fatima discerned with different religious communities. She visited the Missionaries of Charity in Chicago, the Salesians, the Carmelites and many others. During a second visit with the Missionaries of Charity, this time in San Francisco, she felt the burning sensation that she had when she was 18. But at the time, she wasn’t ready for the Missionaries.

Fatima Partida is with her family in Boise for her master's degree graduation ceremony. "My debt is holding me back from entering the convent," she said. "But then if I hadn’t worked on my thesis project for my master’s degree, I wouldn’t have experienced helping those experiencing homelessness. The project helped me realize my helplessness and how we all need God’s help.” (Courtesy photo/Fatima Partida)

“I was hoping to join a congregation that devoted more time to study and prayer, so I ignored the feeling that I was meant to be with the Missionaries of Charity,” she said.

In the summer of 2025, Fatima decided to do a year of missionary work in Saltillo, Mexico.

“I told people at work that I was leaving my job to become a missionary and then hopefully become a religious sister.

My supervisor said, ‘Well, you’re the first person in the history of this company to ever do that.’ They threw me a retirement party on my birthday, May 9.”

Fatima gave everything away, ready to leave for the mission, but then the plans fell through at the last minute. “I had no job; I had nothing,” she recalled.

Fatima moved back with her parents near Sacramento. Although she was unsure what to do next, her younger brother entered the seminary for the Diocese of Sacramento.

“He was also in trouble in the womb and doctors thought he would die. My mother prayed that if God spared his life, she would offer him to the service of the Church,” Fatima said. “Her pregnancy with my oldest sister and youngest brother had no life-threatening complications. My sister is discerning religious life through a program with the Salesians. My youngest brother is studying film, but he jokes that he might become a monk.”

After more time in prayer, Fatima chose to discern with the Missionaries of Charity again.

“I decided to go to the ‘Come and See’ program with the Missionaries of Charity,” she said. That time, everything clicked.

“Next to the crucifix in the convent were the words, ‘I Thirst,’” she said. “Those same words that Jesus had been saying to me when I prayed before the Eucharist.”

In 1946, St. Teresa of Kolkata, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, felt Jesus say to her “I Thirst” while she was looking at the crucifix. It was then that she received her “call within a call” to quench the thirst of Jesus for souls and love through her work for “the poorest of the poor.”

When Fatima saw the "I Thirst" next to the Crucifix in the convent of the Missionaries of Charity, everything clicked. She knew Jesus was calling her to serve as a Missionary of Charity. (Courtesy photo/Fatima Partida)

“I learned more about Mother Teresa’s call, and I knew that I was meant to be with the Missionaries of Charity,” she said. A few months later, on the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Fatima was accepted to the postulancy for the Missionaries of Charity.

“It was exactly two years after I said ‘yes’ to Jesus’ proposal.”

The only obstacle to Fatima entering the convent in June of this year is her college debt.

“It’s kind of strange: My debt is holding me back from entering the convent, but then if I hadn’t worked on my thesis project for my master’s degree, I wouldn’t have experienced helping those experiencing homelessness. The project helped me realize my helplessness and how we all need God’s help.”

The Missionaries of Charity and Fatima have partnered with The Labouré Society, a Catholic non-profit 501(c)(3) that helps rescue vocations of those called to Religious life or the priesthood overcome the barrier of educational expenses.

If you would like to help Fatima meet her goal so that she can enter the Missionaries of Charity, visit rescuevocations.org/aspirant/Fatima-Partida or email FatimaPartida@rescuevocations.org.