Messaggio della Consigliera per le Missioni_14 novembre 2020 eng

1. Rome, 14 November 2020
Dearest Sisters,
After living the month of October with much
missionary enthusiasm and passion, in spite of the
world’s suffering that continues to wend its way to
Calvary because of the pandemic, we are here for our
usual appointment. I greet you affectionately,
wishing you great serenity and trust in the future and a
gaze that is increasingly broadened to see God’s will in
every event and His presence in our sisters and brothers
who need a house, work, health, dignity. This is the
favorable time to live even more intensely the mandate,
“I entrust them to you”!
As General Council, we have lived the Plenum from 21
September to 30 October, dedicating a lot of time to the preparation of General Chapter XXIV, in the
hope of being able to have it on the date foreseen of April-May 2021. Every Province has already received
the key for reading the Working Document and has involved the whole Province, including the laity and the
young people. The feedback that comes to Mother is very positive. We pray that it may be a strong time of
ongoing formation for everyone!
Some news from the Sector. We have with us 5 of the 12 new-missionaries of 2020-2021. The
Sisters who arrived are: two from Korea, one from Poland, another two from Vietnam who were already in
Rome to learn the language. On October 26, the 5 new-missionaries began the intense Course of Italian with
Professor Silvia Casale, a teacher from the Gregorian Pontifical University. The other new-missionaries who
still have to arrive come from these nations: Philippines, Vietnam, India, Colombia, and Timor. Due to the
pandemic, they will arrive at different times because they need the Visa and other documents and not all the
Offices for this are functioning regularly. As you can see, we cannot foresee the organization as we did
before. Reality asks us to adapt ourselves to surprises and to the ‘new normal’. In addition, of the 12 new-
missionaries, two have already received their destination from Mother. Attached you will find the complete
list with the names of the Sisters and the Provinces they come from.
Here is the news regarding the missionaries of last year: two are still at the Generalate waiting for
their documents to obtain the Visa. Four sisters are in their own Provinces preparing their documentation, but
they have not been able to leave for their destination yet. Two of the group were able to reach London where
they are learning English. Only one Sister was able to obtain the Visa and left for her destination.
We still have three Sisters from 2018-2019 who are blocked in the United States and in France,
where they had gone to learn the language, and one is in her Province of origin to obtain the Visa. This is the
reality we are living. I believe that in everything there is God’s ‘reason’. We are invited to listen to Him in
His Word that is manifested precisely in reality.
Dearest Sisters, exactly on a day like today, 14 November of the distant 1877, the First Missionary
Expedition left from Genoa with 6 young enterprising FMA, missionaries ad gentes. May Heaven grant us
the grace of keeping alive in the Institute the passion of the “Da mihi animas” and of the mandate, “I entrust
them to you”, so that we may live this ‘missionary breath of the origins’ and be a sign of hope for the new
generations.
Within the journey we have proposed for this 2020 to encounter Mother Mazzarello through her
letters to the missionaries, I would like to invite you to re-read Letter 26, written from Nizza on 11
September 1879, to the Sisters of the house of Montevideo-Villa Colón.
By now you have become aware that the re-reading and studying the Letters of Mother Mazzarello
does not follow a chronological order. I let myself be guided, not only by the coincidence of dates or of
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2. events of our time, but above all by the inspiring words of Mother Mazzarello that become “God’s Word” for
all of us.
In Letter 26, Mother Mazzarello thanks for the news received, explains what constitutes a true
religious spirit, and gives news of the community. With great motherliness, Mother Mazzarello begins the
letter with one desire, to console and encourage the Sisters who are far away. Since it is impossible to write
personally to each one as she would have liked to do, she shows the intensity of her affection with the
expression, “You will have to be satisfied with these few words which really come from my heart.”
Yes, the words of Mother come from her heart…a heart that thinks of her faraway daughters, and not
only this, but she prays and makes others pray for them, “We made our Holy Retreat…Poor souls! How
often we thought of you and prayed for you…”.
The Cronistoria recounts that on 3 September, at the end of the Spiritual Exercises, the Sisters had
received the printed Rule from Fr. Cagliero (cf. Volume III 77-78). For this reason, Mother Mazzarello affirms
they have “a firm will to become holy”. And she adds, “not only we, but that you too might have this desire,
as I hope you have.” And she indicates the goal, as she does in many of her letters, “so that one day we will
all be united in that beautiful place, Heaven.”
Thus, “Courage, then my dears. Everything passes…But merits never pass away.”
In this letter, Mother also speaks of charity, of obedience, of being “attached to the Holy Rule”. She
reveals that her heart “prays continually for blessings on all of you, that you may really clothe yourselves in
the Spirit of our Good Jesus.”
And she herself asks, “What was the Spirit of the Lord like?” And from her wisdom, erupts the
response, “It was that humble, patient spirit, full of charity, that charity characteristic of Jesus who could
never suffer enough for us.” The invitation that Mother Mazzarello gives to the missionary Sisters in that
1879 arrives with great actuality for our days, “Let us truly imitate our dearest Jesus in everything,
especially in humility and charity. Really, eh!”
“Clothe yourselves in the Spirit of Jesus” and have the same sentiments of Jesus that, according to
Pope Francis, “means thinking like Him, loving like Him, seeing like Him, walking like Him. It means doing
what He did and with His own sentiments, with the sentiments of His heart” (homily, 3 January 2014).
For Mother Mazzarello, “clothing ourselves in the Spirit of Jesus” is living like Him, loving like
Him, becoming a neighbor to our neighbor always and everywhere. “As soon as you notice that someone
needs some comfort, give it to her immediately; console and help one another!”
Dearest Sisters, I pray that we may all live our consecration “clothed in the Spirit of Jesus”, above
all in this special time of history that makes us understand that life can change from one moment to the next,
that we are small, weak, unprepared before the adversities of life. It is a time that has changed our plans and
made us touch with our hand our own fragility and that of others.
I would like to end this message with the words of Mother Mazzarello, “Courage then, my dearest
Sisters in Jesus, let us remember that everything passes, so let nothing disturb us, since everything serves to
acquire true happiness”. “Look, we have a beautiful statue of Mary Immaculate here and I often go to her
feet to implore graces for you all.” Especially for the missionaries ad gentes who are in the geographical and
existential peripheries, that is, in realities that are sorely tried by war, poverty, the Covid-19 pandemic.
In preparation for GC XXIV let us pray together: Mary, daughter of the Son, fill our jars with the
wine of humility and of reciprocal charity so that we may live in the heart of contemporaneity with the same
sentiments of Jesus.
A warm embrace for each of you and let us always remain in sisterly communion and in reciprocal
prayer!
Councilor for the Missions
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