1. The letter wishes the sisters a Happy New Year filled with health, serenity, and missionary passion like Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello. 2. It discusses upcoming reflections on Mary's presence at the Wedding in Cana and generating life in contemporary communities, the theme of the upcoming GC XXIV. 3. It invites the sisters to contemplate Mary's heart as a mother present at Jesus' life and the lives of her children, knowing how to generate life, with her presence ensuring the miracle is always possible.

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Rome, 14 January 2021.
Dearest Sisters,
A renewed Happy New Year! May
2021 be a year filled with health, serenity, and
much , the same passion ofmissionary passion
Don Bosco and of Mother Mazzarello that
inflamed the heart and that, through their life
and charism, indicated the path to us to
bring Jesus to the young and the young
to Jesus.
After 2020, a very unique year
that gave us the opportunity to revisit some
of the letters of Mother Mazzarello to the
missionaries, in the coming months I would
like to offer you a simple reflection on the
presence of Mary, Mother of Jesus, at the
Wedding of Cana. She, the outgoing woman, is
present at the feast with a gaze that is attentive
to the needs of others.
“Do whatever He tells you” (Jn 2: 5). Communities that generate life in the heart of
contemporaneity is the theme that is moving the preparation for GC XXIV. In the coming months
that separate us from the celebration of the General Chapter, for the 14th
, together with you, I desire
to look at Mary as a very concrete woman, a true disciple-missionary, who teaches us to not only
generate life, but to be able to care for life in all its dimensions.
I hope that our next appointments will help us to meet Mary as a Mother fully immersed in
the life of her Son and of her children, that is, Mary always present, so that there will never be
lacking ‘good wine’ in our educative-missionary realities. Thus, we will be able to grow in
awareness of the real, motherly presence of Mary. Surely she, our good Mother, will see us as
committed to be good daughters, always present in the life of the people entrusted to us and
everyone’s sisters!
«In imitation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, ‘we want to be a Church (Institute) that serves,
that leaves home and goes forth from its places of worship, goes forth from its sacristies, in order to
accompany life, to sustain hope, to be the sign of unity… to build bridges, to break down walls, to
sow seeds of reconciliation’». (FT n. 276).
The Gospel of John (2: 1-2) narrates, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in
Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the
wedding.” With these two verses, I invite you to look at and contemplate the heart of Mary, the
heart of a Mother who participates in the life of her son Jesus and in the life of her daughters and
sons. Mary is the Mother present at the feast of life because she knows how to generate life.
There where the Mother is present, the Son is present! Where Mary is present, the miracle is
always possible because Mary continually presents to Jesus the needs of humanity and He, as her

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Son, cannot deny anything to Her who, at the Annunciation, received Him first in her heart and
then in her body.
Mary is a presence that walks with us and opens to us ever new mission frontiers. Mary
walks in our houses, in our courtyards, together with the children and young people entrusted to us
and even those who still wait to be reached by the Salesian charism. Mary participates in the
world’s suffering, and also in its joys and progress.
In the feast of life, but also in every ordinary circumstance, Mary precedes the Son. Mary is
present ‘three days after’, but is also and above all, present before and during every day of ours,
before and during every day of the creation of the new world, with the promise that we will never
lack the ‘good wine’, the wine of hope, of solidarity, of justice, and of peace! It is the ‘good wine’
of the Spirit that moves us towards new paths of service and of fraternal communion.
All of us know by heart the Wedding feast of Cana… we know that the feast will not only
end well, but that life will be an ongoing feast because of the ‘good wine’, fruit of the miracle of
Jesus and of the of the life-giving presence of Mary.
Dearest Sisters, allow me to give you two invitations:
The first is to take up again the subtitle Being there in the heart of contemporaneity with
the attitude of Mary from the convocation letter of GC XXIV (Circular 985).
The second is that of entering into the heart of Mary, the Mother invited and present at the
Wedding Feast of Cana, because by entering into the heart of Mary, it is easier to understand that
“our time represents a challenge and an opportunity to enter into our society with an evangelical
heart… an opportunity to be there with our heart, understood in Biblical anthropology, as
interiority, the most intimate and profound dimension of being, the generative source of will and of
human actions, the place that becomes the ‘seat’ of the Spirit” (Circular 985).
In his Gospel, Luke repeats two times that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in
her heart” (Lk 2: 19/51). I imagine that Mary, after seeing the spouses in difficulty because of the
lack of wine, and even more, after seeing Jesus restore joy and serenity to the feast, conserved all
these things in her motherly heart… her attitude is for us the certainty that, even today, in the
history of humanity traversed by so many difficulties and much uneasiness, Mary anticipates the
hour of Jesus. Mary intervenes because she is the Mother who generates life!
Today we greet Mother Yvonne Reungoat with great affection on her birthday, wishing her
good health and the constant presence of Mary, as Mother of Good Counsel. We thank God for her
‘missionary heart’ and for her generous service of animation and government, especially in this
unprecedented time in history. Greetings, dearest Mother!
To all of you, dear sisters, a strong embrace and the certainty of remembrance in prayer.
Together, let us leave our hearts in the heart of Mary!
Sr. Alaide Deretti
Councilor for the Missions