Estoril (Portugal). On 5 October 2024, the Vicar General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sister María del Rosario García Ribas, in an Animation Visit to the Province of Our Lady of Fatima (POR), met with the Provincial, Sister Maria Deolinda Dos Santos, the Provincial Councilors, and all the FMA who wanted at the Provincial Headquarters in Estoril.
After the Assembly of VIDES International in Fatima, on 30 September, she visited the houses and works of the Province. The FMA who were present, listened with joy to the words of the Vicar General, as one of them recounts:
Sister María del Rosario (Sister Chary) repeated in delicate and sincere words what Pope Francis never tires of saying, “‘the note that characterizes consecrated life is prophecy’. From there you see the ‘measure’ of our prophecy. If we assume that no one is a prophet in their own land, this immediately spreads, passes on, and imprints the doubt that none can open their mouth in their own community… But if we humbly move on from the Gospel, where we read the same statement of Jesus, up to the last drop of blood, we can already ask ourselves where we are centered. Does our behavior want to be missionary or the gesture of a teacher? No one is a teacher of anyone. The missionary, the prophet who carries within self a promise, an invitation of Jesus, does not need to say much. We can think of Saint Francis of Assisi: ‘Brothers, go out and preach and, if necessary, speak’.
Beneath every limitation and fragility, there is a seed of life that can germinate. When He looks, Jesus sees what no one else can see, not because we need an eye examination, but because Jesus always goes beyond. He is the only sure source. Everything else leaves us empty.”
Sister Chary also advised us to open the windows of our deepest being first thing in the morning. To remember the concentration of love reached in that seeking of Mother Mazzarello from the window of the Valponasca to the parish church. And, in her kind way, she left us with our ‘tasks’: “What blocks our window? Which clouds hide the glow of our love?”
She said something I can’t omit to transcribe, “This aspect of generating life has much to do – it has everything to do – with being human, with being women (if we want to generate…) with a deep human sensitivity, capable of ‘infecting’ community fraternity.
If fraternity is the strongest and most visible prophecy in today’s society, let us go ahead; what are we waiting for? ‘Only then will they know that you are My disciples’, Jesus Christ said and confirmed long ago.”
Sister María del Rosario will finish the visit to the POR Province on 12 October, receiving the perpetual vows of Sister Diana Arrobas in Setúbal, in the Church of Saint Mary of Grace.
