INSTITUTE OF THE DAUGHTERS OF MARY HELP OF CHRISTIANS
Founded by St. John Bosco
and St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello
No. 936
Mary Living Dwelling Place of God
Our heart is full of the joy we have lived during this period. The election of Pope Francis as the successor of Peter and the Bishop of Rome has brought an atmosphere of spring with the powerful wind of the Holy Spirit. We meet many people who spontaneously express their joy and the new hope it has aroused from sensing the new Pope’s closeness. May Easter joy pervade us, renewing our adhesion to the Lord Jesus with faith and with the totality of our gift. We have deep gratitude in our heart for the Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, who renounced the Papacy with an admirable gesture of love. He enriched the Church and the world with a deep Magisterium of great timeliness. More and more, history will reveal how the Lord manifested Himself through him.
In addition, the Feast of Gratitude at the world level is always motivated by a great joy that nourishes our sense of family, of deep communion, of sharing in solidarity. I renew my gratitude to the Indian Province, St. Thomas Apostle of Chennai (NM) for the quality of animation in regard to this annual appointment that has involved our whole Institute and educating communities.
Another important moment is the launching of the preparation for GC XXIII. A personal reading has begun in the various province realities of the letter of convocation: ‘In Preparation for General Chapter XXIII’ and already plans are underway for studying and sharing the document. I am certain we all feel responsible for being involved in this journey of the Institute.
I thank you for being the ‘living stones’ of the monument of Don Bosco’s dream that we want to keep alive, freeing it from the dust that may have obscured its original beauty. We are all dedicated to its continual construction, responding to the new demands of the times. It is a challenge to be received as Institute: maintaining fidelity to the charism and individuating the way of responding to unheard of educational needs and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus’ Gospel.
Pope Francis has stressed how, paradoxically, we change because we are faithful. Fidelity is always a change, a blossoming, a growth, because the Lord works change in those who are faithful. Our covenant of love is life and life evolves gradually and continually. May my wish happen in each of us and in our Institute, that we may be joyfully faithful to the origins and courageously receive the dynamism of the charism in the light of the Holy Spirit.
I express special gratitude to the elderly and sick FMA who constantly pray and offer so that the life and mission entrusted to us may respond more and more to the expectations of God and of the young people today.
With this Circular, I intend to pause on a point in the letter of Convocation of GC XXIII: Mary, Living Dwelling Place of God.
Woman of Faith who receives the Word
Let us gaze upon Mary who with her ‘yes’ became the womb of the Word. She is the first tabernacle that received and cared for Jesus. She is the first evangelizer who became a missionary, going quickly to her cousin Elizabeth. Certainly she went help her, but above all, to share with her the awe and joy of the mystery she carried within herself. She could do this only with Elizabeth because she too guarded the miracle of life of the one who would be the Precursor. It was a divine encounter and one that was also exquisitely human. It speaks to us today as well, called by vocation to give ourselves reciprocally in true human relationships that are authentic and transparent; to be small lights of hope for each other. It is a hope, as Pope Francis has said recently, that we must not allow to be taken from us.
To experience it, we must not be egocentric, but allow ourselves to be moved by the power of love that knows how to go out toward others, recognizing the novelty of the little experiences that daily life offers us. In discovering them, we are helped to go beyond the threshold of distraction. They give us the courage to enter into ourselves, to be truthful with ourselves, and to thank God who generously and untiringly gives us His love through situations and persons.
The Biblical page we find in the Letter of Convocation of GC XXIII follows the stages of Maria’s life that built her existence on the rock. She is for us, for the educating communities, and for the younger generations a model of total abandonment to the Word. We are invited, not only to read, but also to meditate and pray on the biblical reflection that is offered by the above cited letter, and in the light of the Holy Spirit, to let ourselves be illumined by it. It will be of great help to us in understanding how to prepare a home to receive the Word. It will be an opportunity to ‘learn again in Mary’s home’ with the love of daughters. May she lead us to Jesus, help us to believe, to hope, to love. Only with this experience of encounter will we be ready to proclaim the Gospel to the younger generations and help them experience the beauty of the faith.
Opening again the doors of our existence to her, our Mother and Helper assists us in deepening an important aspect of our spirituality that we must allow to radiate in all its splendour. Therefore, dear Sisters, let us open the doors of our home as John did at the foot of the Cross. After Jesus’ words, “Behold your Mother” (John 19: 27), he not only took her into his home as a material dwelling, but into his life, into his heart. (Cf Preparation of General Chapter XXIII, p. 20)
I pray that you will receive Mary with your entire being, entering into a familiar relationship with her, even establishing an explicit understanding to travel together toward a deep encounter with Jesus. In our times, we need to be led to discover the tie between Mary of Nazareth and the believer’s listening to the Word. It is an active listening that interiorizes and assimilates, one in which the Word becomes the way of life. The Word became Mary’s home and Mary became the dwelling place of the Word. (Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, 28)
How beautiful it is to think that we too are called to be this through grace, notwithstanding our poverty and fragility. Rather, poverty is the open space into which the Lord of life can be received with joy and trust.
I find myself in full harmony with the words of Pope Francis, “God does not desire a house built by man, but desires fidelity to His Word, to His plan. It is God Himself who builds the house, one of living stones marked by His Spirit”. (Homily, March 19, 2013)
May the Lord act freely in our regard as He was able to do with Mary. Let us not be tempted by feelings of fear, hesitancy, and perplexity that may insinuate themselves in our life and give the evil one a way to become our master. The spiritual worldliness of which Pope Francis speaks can be a risk for us as well when we distance ourselves from the Word, when we give into superficiality that saddens life and makes it insignificant and devoid of good works.
Mary listened to the Word, received it, and obeyed it. With her and like her, we are invited to have the courage to go always, personally and as community, along the road that Jesus opens before us. We must not give in to the compromises the world offers as a way to happiness.
Mary directs us on the journey of light, of hope, of the Truth of the Word. Let us entrust ourselves entirely to her who was the inspirer of our Institute and continues to be its Teacher and Mother. (Cf C 4)
Guide on our journey of faith
The Letter of Convocation of GC XXIII specifies that the term ‘home’ means a way of being and of being in relationship, a human and spiritual climate made up of trust, intergenerational dialogue, reciprocal listening and enrichment. (Cf In Preparation for General Chapter XXIII, p. 7)
It deals with a home to safeguard and build on a solid and granitic foundation as happened at Mornese and Valdocco, where all was evaluated in the irreplaceable presence of Mary. “I will give you the Teacher!” This is not a rhetorical or circumstantial phrase. The story of our religious Family was enriched along the years with an intense, solid love for Mary. Where there is Mary, there is a future; there is openness to broad horizons that go beyond our plans, beyond our individual labours. Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello looked toward the future with great faith, with unlimited trust, with courageous humility.
At Mornese as at Nizza, Mary is not a guest. She is a constant and familiar presence. The keys of the house are entrusted to her, as well as those of the heart of each person. Placing the keys at the feet of the Madonna has highly symbolic value. It expresses the serene readiness of not keeping anything for self, but handing over everything to her whose love is known to us. And we know that she faithfully hands everything over to Jesus.
At Valdocco, Don Bosco had already begun a Basilica as the house of Mary. But this was not enough! He wanted to raise a Monument of living stones. From this idea, the Institute matured in his heart precisely in the years in which he was building and then inaugurating that temple. He, who had experienced the power and tenderness of Mary at every stage of the story of the Congregation, wanted to sing in eternity his gratitude to this Mother who was so solicitous and powerful.
Thus, he wanted our Institute to be the living memorial to Mary in time and space. The name of the new Institute is the symbol of its identity, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the living monument of gratitude. The name expresses the Marian identity of the Institute. At the formation level, we must shape our life according to Mary’s image. Mother Mazzarello recommended this to the first Sisters, “Be true images of Mary”. (Cronistoria III, 216)
At Mornese, Mary nourished interiority, listening to God and situations. She reinforced communion in a true family spirit. She intensified the missionary ardour of many Sisters. How many FMA in the 140 years of the history of our religious Family modelled their life on Mary! As we read in the Plan of Formation, the life of Mary is not a static reality, realized once and for all, “but a reality that flows and becomes truth in the lives of her daughters”. (Rooted in the Covenant, 31)
Mary is Mother because she generated in faith, with all its required demands. Let us take her into our home without fear. We continue our journey in the Church with her, among and with the young generations. Together we proceed with new courage, with love, with the concreteness that our spirituality calls for.
We are nearing the celebration of the month of May, the Marian month. Let us leave our ‘routine’ styles of prayer, of superficial knowledge of the figure of Mary, and let us study her role in the Church, in the history of humanity, in our personal and community history. Let us re-read our vocational journey in the light of her presence, and in the measure possible, let us make it the object of sharing among ourselves.
The Marian Seminar organized by the Pontifical Faculty Auxilium, in collaboration with the General Council through the Salesian Family sector, will be held in Rome on September 23-28, 2013. It will be for the whole Institute a privileged occasion for new and deepened reflection. It is important that this reflection become a life witness, so that the figure of Mary may emerge in all its beauty.
What is greater and more fruitful than the possibility of building with her, a home that evangelizes? Do we feel this presence alive in our life, in our mission, and among the young generations? Do the cultural changes, the evolution of history, the social and educational problems that question us each day, urge us to seek how to be with the young today, a reality that allows itself to be evangelized, and therefore to be fruitful and contagious in the proclamation?
Allow me, dear Sisters, to bring out a deep desire. It is that the preparation for the future General Chapter be for the entire Institute the opportunity to determine to build together, with the Holy Spirit’s breath and in Mary’s company, communities of faith founded on the presence of the Risen Christ, communities in which we uphold each other in the courage of letting ourselves be transformed by the Word, communities that radiate gestures of goodness, of tenderness, of forgiveness, of apostolic passion.
Would it be possible to have as a contribution from each of us and from every community in preparation for GC XXIII that, together with prayer and sharing, we decide to refrain from thinking or speaking ill of each other, and instead, value the positive that is in each person and extend this attitude to the young people and to all the persons who share the mission? Every thought, every word, every gesture is a seed that positively or negatively marks history, a seed of new life or a seed of death. I think this decision can change the atmosphere of every house. Why not try?
These gestures teach us to go outside ourselves, as Pope Francis stressed, to go toward the periphery of existence, to be the first to move toward our sisters and brothers, above all those who are farthest, those who are forgotten, and those who have more need of understanding, of consolation, of help. (Cf General Audience, March 27, 2013)
There is a great desire in everyone to make our places grow in an authentic family spirit, to accept each other with sincerity and uprightness, rejoicing with those who rejoice and suffering with those who suffer, bringing light and love to the persons we meet, beginning with those who are nearest. Tenderness ‘is not the virtue of the weak’. On the contrary, it denotes strength of soul and the capacity for attentiveness, for compassion, for true openness toward others. It is the capacity for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!” (Pope Francis, Homily, March 19, 2013)