Mischievous and determined

Would you like us to carry on with Dina?

Even before that famous tantrum, her mother had already taught her to pray and sometimes Dina, who could still hardly walk, knelt down beside her. When her parents said the Angelus, Dina hurried so as to be able to shout the final Amen!

She accompanied her mother on her visits to poor families, those in need of help and the sick. It is best to learn from early childhood how to share, to give, to be unselfish. Soon Dina began to go to church with her mother, but the sermons seemed to be both long and boring. She found a solution, which was to carry a small doll in her pocket and take it out just as the preacher went up to the pulpit.  Her mother noticed this and said “Put that away”. Unwillingly Dina restored it to her pocket, but a few minutes later Valeda’s head appears again, and, to end the story, her mother put the doll in her bag and Dina resigned herself to await the inevitable scolding when they got home. To avoid further scenes, her mother hid the doll. Dina searched for it and, what joy, found it! But the victory was short lived; her mother took it again and this time the lesson was learned.

So as you can see, Dina was a handful.  Her strong-willed and tenacious character will eventually enable her to carry something through with determination in order to reach the goal. Thanks to her constant correspondence with grace, this was expressed through the obedience and humility which she lived throughout her life and which was remarkable to the very end. It is true that Dina soon advanced on an upward path, but she was not born a saint. Like any other child she was naughty and grew up with defects and pranks that she would have to overcome.

When she was six years old she went to Primary School in St Roche. Before leaving home she was afraid that she might be bored, but, as she herself tells us, she committed herself “not only enthusiastically but even passionately”. She wanted to be the first – and this she achieved. As she was shy and very sensitive, she did not enjoy noisy games, but neither did she want to be different from the others.  She had wavy hair which could be simply tied back with a ribbon, but she asked her mother to plait it in order to obey the school rules.

Her school years were also years of progress in character formation. Although outwardly like all the other children, inside she was already feeling a strong attraction for the person of Jesus and a nostalgia for God which she maintained throughout her life.