[1][2] Antal was known for her strong faith and her love for the Mother of God; she had long desired to enter the religious life as a nun but settled on the Secular Franciscans after the communist regime suppressed convents and monasteries in Romania.
[1][2] Her parents spent so much time at work in the fields that her grandmother Zarafina raised her and instructed her in the faith; it was in her childhood her devotion to the Blessed Virgin manifested.
[3][4] Her schooling was spent in her hometown from age seven where she earned good grades before leaving to join her parents to work in the fields.
[3] Antal instead joined the Secular Franciscan Order (which her spiritual director Alois Donea advised her to) and then made a private vow of perpetual virginity.
[1] On the evening of 24 August 1958 she returned from her local parish after having just received the Confirmation from Petru Pleșca when Pavel Mocanu began to harass her en route home.