As a teenager, Dianne’s love for music led her to join a Drum and Bugle Corps, where she was a drummer, a drum major, and later the drum line instructor. The Holy Spirit intervened in her life and led her to channel her love for music as a means to glorify God.Dianne Socchia was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, as the third of six children. She attended Catholic school until the eighth grade and Sunday Mass with her family. Confirmed at age twelve, Dianne’s faith was strengthened when she attended the Advent Novena services held prior to Christmas. The interior joy she felt while singing, ”O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and during solemn Benediction compelled her to make the sacrifice of walking to Church on those dark and cold winter nights. Her love for God continued to grow as she sang in the choir during the Solemn Latin Mass while in eighth grade.
After teacher’s college, Dianne taught in Catholic elementary education. As she prepared her seventh grade students to receive Confirmation, the Holy Spirit prepared her to receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. It happened while she attended a teacher’s retreat weekend. That Sunday she prayed in the secrecy of her retreat room, ”Holy Spirit, come into my heart and make me a strong Christian woman.” God’s love branded her heart and she wanted to belong totally to Jesus. Dianne was twenty-one at the time.
After two years, Dianne moved back to her hometown to teach and attended a large Charismatic prayer group, where she became part of the praise and worship team. While attending a leader’s session, she met Sister Frederica, who did missionary work with the Canadian Natives. Dianne volunteered to help Sister in the summers. Sister’s example as a single-hearted bride of Christ and her life of contemplation inspired Dianne, and the seeds of a religious vocation were sown in her heart.
On a visit to Madonna House, Dianne met a few Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. While on a hermitage experience, she read their Founding Document. These words of a call to conversion and mission, within a deep relationship with the Lord in prayer burned in her heart.
Dianne shortly resigned from teaching and entered the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ in April of 1976, while they were in Littlefield, Texas. These were the founding years of the DLJCs, and she received the name Sister Therese as a novice. She professed her final vows in November of 1979. A Scripture that expresses her life is Philippians 3:10, ”I wish only to know Christ Jesus, and the power of His Resurrection, to know how to share in His sufferings by being formed into the pattern of His death.”
