The Talangpaz sisters left their comfortable home in Calumpit, Bulacan in 1719 in pursuit of their spiritual calling after their Augustinian pastor repeatedly turned down their request for permission to wear the habit of mantelata.

Although in the beginning there were no indications of any plans to form a religious community, the sisters became interested in this project because other native women became attracted to their luminous house in the convent garden.

Their devout life attracted the attention of the shrine's caretakers, the Augustinian Recollects, and in July 1725, the sisters received the habit of tertiaries and were gathered in a beaterio.

As explained earlier, the matriarchs of this venerable clan may well have been catalonan who officiated at spiritual rites held on a hallowed rock, the meaning of "Talangpaz."

Some of the aspirants tried to use the influence of important personages to gain admission to the beaterio while others refused or were unable to give a dowry or any form of material contribution to the community as required by the rules of the Tertiary order.

The forlorn sisters rented back their old nipa hut near the church and resumed their religious life even as they mourned the loss of their treasured habit of mantelatas.

"Father, they intimated to fray Juan, it is clear that God and the Most Holy virgin have deigned to test us and purify our souls in the crucible of sorrows.

From these shall emerge a sapling which, as the father prior will surely witness, shall grow into a big tree under whose shade the birds will build their nests and sing their canticles to God."

Strong in hope and gifted with sibyllic vision like earlier Filipino priestesses and beatas, the sisters also sought out the prior himself to assure him with these predictive words: "Fray Diego, please bear with us.

Using his resources and those of the convent and the other friars together with the contributions of lay benefactors, the prior ordered the construction of a new and bigger house made of wood for the sisters and their future companions.

The latter assured them of support in exchange for their taking charge of the cleaning and washing of the sacred vestments and linen in the shrine of Our lady, a task they were only too happy to accept.

"Of these two sisters," their biographer Benito de San Pablo concluded, "it can be affirmed that the Queen of Carmel had called them to nourish them in a special manner with the sweetest nectar of her compassion.

The foundation which the Sisters had laid on solid rock continued to flourish and develop even after they were called to their eternal reward-Mother Cecelia Rosa on 31 July 1731 and Sor Dionisia on 12 October 1732.