Childhood and adolescence

Coínta Emiliana Jauregui Osés was born on the 8th. February 1875 in Falces (Navarra). From her early years Cointa was a happy child, playful and very communicative. From the ages of 13 to 16 she was a boarder in the Company of Mary school at Tudela, where she became acquainted with the life of enclosed nuns. On finishing her studies she wanted to enter the novitiate with them but her parents refused in order to test the girl's vocation. She returned to Falces and to her previous way of life during which Cointa's vocation matured. She saw clearly that it was important for her to enter religious life. So, when she was 18 she again brought up the subject of her vocation, with the result that she returned to Tudela, where she received the Habit of the religious of the Order of the Company of Mary on 22nd October 1893 and entered the novitiate.

She decided to share the poverty of Jesus made man. At the end of the Novitiate and before making the vow of poverty, she renounced her goods and those her parents would leave her.

Tudela, novitiate and profession

In the Company of Mary the novitiate lasts two years, during which Cointa applied herself to the tasks of the novitiate with determination and generosity. She acquired the Ignatian spirit of discernment, obedience and willingness in the constant search for the ever-greater glory of God. At the end of the novice-ship, Cointa made her profession of poverty, chastity and obedience and prepared herself especially to teach children in the Company of Mary. After her Profession, on 27th October 1895, she remained in the novitiate as "distributaria" with the task of overseeing and coordinating the novices' work. At the end of 1899, she left Tudela with a group of Sisters to begin a foundation in Talavera de la Reina, in the diocese of Toledo, with a new monastery and school dedicated to the education of girls.