Bilbao, late 1980s. An 18-year-old conservatory student, passionate about music, swimming, and social life, decides one day to cut herself off from everything. Without telling her family, without money or permission, Olga María del Redentor takes a train and leaves for a convent. “I’m running away like a madman,” she says humorously in a recent interview on the podcast  Rebeldes , hosted by priests Ignacio Amorós and Pablo López. That decision wasn’t a teenage whim, but rather a response to an absolute certainty in her heart: Jesus Christ was calling her.

Born in Baracaldo (Vizcaya) in 1970, Olga grew up in a non-practicing Catholic family, but one with deep roots in faith. Her father, a profoundly good and hardworking man, had suffered a negative experience in his adolescence that distanced him from the Church, although he never ceased to be an example of human virtue. Her mother prayed with her at night and took her to religious schools. It was there, before a crucifix in Loyola during a parish excursion, that the young girl felt for the first time that “God exists and is good.” That gaze upon the Crucified Christ marked her forever.

Around the age of 14 or 15, an inner conflict arose: a passionate, intensely affectionate heart, burning within, yet finding no outlet. Romantic films like  Love Story  made her see things clearly: “I needed a love that would never end.” A nun at her school, Sister Margarita, helped her discover that this love existed and had a name: Jesus. Little by little, through prayer, chapel time, and discernment, she understood that her vocation was total dedication to the contemplative life. At 16, in Ávila, she had a clear vision: she would become a Discalced Carmelite.

But his family opposed it with all their might. Negotiations, bribes, tears. His father, his greatest role model, begged him on his knees not to leave. “Only for God am I capable of making my father suffer like this,” he recalls. Two years of intense arguments, of almost daily tears. On his 18th birthday, the very next day, he ran away. He called to reassure his parents and entered the Carmelite convent in Valladolid. “I have never regretted it,” he states emphatically.

Life in the cloister was a brutal change: from a girl in a well-to-do home to tending 400 chickens, from a conservatory to silence and austerity. A rigorous schedule: rising at 6:30, mental prayer, Mass, silent work, conversational recess—as Saint Teresa taught: “The holier we are, the more conversant we are”—spiritual reading, and bed after Compline. “I was happy from the very first minute,” she affirms, although there were also moments of nostalgia and hardship.

After 17 years as a Discalced Carmelite, in 2001, on the eve of Corpus Christi, before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, she experienced a moment that transformed everything: she understood with her whole being that Jesus Christ is alive and has a human heart. “Jesus feels, laughs with me, cries with me, is filled with joy when I go to receive Communion, and suffers when I ignore Him.” She poured that powerful grace into the spirituality of the Sacred Heart. From there arose the call to “shout it to the world”: to found, together with her community, the Carmelite Samaritan Sisters of the Heart of Jesus, an institute of active contemplative life, inspired by Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman (Jn 4). Today they have a presence in Valladolid, Toledo, Segovia, Eibar, and Uruguay.

The most heartbreaking testimony of the interview was the suicide of her brother Iván, a victim of severe endogenous depression. “It hurt even to breathe,” she confesses. In the chapel, through tears, she repeated Marta’s words: “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” She felt within herself: “And who told you I wasn’t there?” Since then, the certainty that “no one dies alone”—Jesus is present in that final moment—gives her peace. “My brother is with the Lord.”

Mother Olga also speaks of fear, that paralyzing temptation: “The antidote is not courage, it is trust.” She refers to the episode of Jesus in the boat: “Why are you afraid? Do you have no faith?” And to the child on the turbulent plane: “I’m not afraid, my dad is the pilot.”

To a young woman in college, she would say, “Don’t settle for anything less than God.” To her teenage self, she would say, “Be patient, let God work.” Her greatest devotion: Saint Teresa of Ávila, her “mother,” and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which “never disappoints.”

Today, this “rebellious nun” proclaims through social media and podcasts that consecrated life doesn’t take away, but rather gives everything: eternal love, fulfillment, and hope. Because, as she repeats, “God loves you and wants you to be happy.”

1. Rebels of God: The faith that ignites the fire in a cold world
2. Olatz Elola: “Having a child today is the greatest act of rebellion”
3. Pedro del Castillo: “He who bets on family never makes a mistake”
4. A rebellious nun who escaped for love: the story of Mother Olga Maria of the Redeemer