Sofia Elizabeth Barela was born on July 8, 1908 to Eugene and Soledad (Gonzales) Barela in Rancho de Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory. New Mexico wouldn’t become a state until 1912. She was the middle of 5 children. Horace and Alice were older and John and Eugene were younger.

Her mother prepared Alice and Sofia for their First Communion. “I was six years old and actually did not understand what it was all about. For me it was just something that I had to have because my sister had it.”

She started school before she knew a word of English. She went to public school from first to ninth grade and then finished her last three years at St. Vincent Academy where she graduated in 1926. She stayed at home but her heart was already in the convent.

Her sister offered to pay for Sofia to go to Business College so she decided she would take a course, get a job, save her money and go to the convent. Her first job was at a furniture store until they went out of business. Then she worked for the Missouri State Life Insurance and Kansas City Life Insurance in Albuquerque, where both companies had branch offices.

“I don’t remember where I heard about Clyde. The very name, ‘Benedictine Convent of Perpetual Adoration’ thrilled me. I just knew that is where I belonged. ” 

She left for Clyde in September 1929. She had good spiritual directors (all Jesuits) since starting high school and felt she had learned a lot from them about the spiritual life. She felt right at home when she entered.

Sophia became a postulant on September 25, 1929. ‘I enjoyed being a postulant; I wasn’t surprised at anything. I did not know Latin and the Divine Office was in Latin; I also didn’t know German and many of the community prayers were in German, but I was not bothered by this. I was in love with God and this is where He wanted me to be.” She had not been sick at home but after entering she realized she was not very strong. She received a lot of consideration and was never given heavy work to do. The spiritual climate, however, was perfect for her.

Sofia entered the novitiate on August 3, 1930 and made First Profession on August 22, 1931 receiving the name Sister Mary Natalia. She made Final Profession on August 29, 1936. In May of 1937 she transferred to the Tucson convent. One of the advantages of the Tucson convent was that several of our sisters who had developed tuberculosis could avail themselves of the fresh air and sunshine, thought to be a benefit at the time. Sr. Natalia was sent there for her health. There were 16 sisters there at that time and she was the youngest in Perpetual Vows. This was still pioneer stage for the Tucson sisters as they had just arrived there in 1935. They occupied the Steinfeld mansion and were able to move to the newly constructed permanent monastery by December 1940. She was in Tucson for 21 years. There she served as the bookkeeper for the altar bread department and was in charge of the Spanish Sentinels. She then moved on to Clyde and Kansas City and also lived in San Diego for a time.

In 1974 she was one of the group of five of our sisters that attempted to establish a small experimental community (short-lived) geared to a simpler form of monastic living in Payson, Arizona.

On returning to Tucson Sr. Natalia became involved with a deeper experience of contemplative prayer. She joined the Contemplative prayer group at the Tucson monastery and also attended meditation sessions with some inter-religious groups in the city. She became an avid reader of St. Teresa of Avila and would impishly say, “Spanish mystics have to stick together.” In her last years in Tucson she was known to say, “I no longer have a set time for personal prayer. God is always with me and I just enjoy His presence all the time." She celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 1981 and her Diamond Jubilee in 1991.

Sr. Natalia moved to Our Lady of Rickenbach Health Care Center in 2001. As the years passed on and other sisters much younger than she went home to heaven, Sr. Natalia was known to express her own readiness to join our Lord and wondered at why he was ‘delaying in coming.’ On December 24th, 2013 she started to fail. A vigil was kept throughout the night and she was welcomed into heaven at 5:55am December 25th with Sr. Cathleen Marie keeping vigil with her. Her patron was “The Word Made Flesh” so it was appropriate she entered into her heavenly birth on her own Name Day. Sister Natalia holds the record for longevity in the congregation at 105 years and 170 days. She was in the 82nd year of her Monastic Profession. Her funeral was held on December 28, 2013 at Clyde, Missouri.