Consignment of GCXXIV ACTS to the Community of the Generalate

Rome (Italy). On 31 December 2021, during the Vespers of the Solemnity of Mary Most Holy Mother of God, the Mother General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sr. Chiara Cazzuola, consigns the Acts of the XXIV General Chapter to each FMA of the Community of Mary Help of Christians of the Generalate (RCG).

In the introduction to Vespers, the gesture is thus motivated:

“We are about to say farewell to the year 2021 that is ending and we are preparing to welcome the new year 2022 that is coming with hope and enthusiasm. At this propitious moment, we have the joy of receiving the Acts of the XXIV General Chapter, which express the fruitfulness and beauty of the Chapter event, lived as a time of grace, in docile listening to the Holy Spirit and to today’s reality of children, teenagers, and young people from all over the world. The very significant consignment of the Acts is an even greater gift for us who welcome them from the hands of Mother! We receive this volume, a symbol of a journey that we as an Institute will undertake together with every Province, community, and Daughter of Mary Help of Christians in the world, with a profound sense of gratitude and a great desire to study its content in- depth in order to live it and be ‘generators of full and abundant life’ in the community and in the mission”.

“We therefore ready our hearts to welcome it with joy and gratitude, so that Mary’s word at Cana, ‘Do whatever He tells you’, may become a reality in our daily life. Thus, we will give continuity to the XXIV General Chapter, in the history of each one and for the history of the Institute which will be 150 years old this year,” are the words of the Animator of the Community, Sr. Carla Castellino.

After the Hymn to the Theotokos, the Mother of God, the Psalms of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the short reading, the Community of the Generalate that from 17 September to 24 October 2021, closely lived the development of GC XXIV, silently prepares to welcome the words and the consignment of Mother General:

“In these days when the echoes of the transmission of the Chapter and the consignment of the Acts are arriving from the Provinces, we feel how important this event was for the Institute. From the moment each of us receives the Acts, the Chapter begins slowly to incarnate itself and to continue in every Community and in every single FMA. The commitment entrusted to each of us is to be generative communities.

 In our life, generativity is expressed in this being attentive, in taking care of the people who are next to us, of young people in a particular way, even if our mission does not lead us, at times, to work concretely and directly for them. But we are all here for them. And the generativity of the Communities is expressed in making life grow, in giving the best of ourselves to others, in asking the Lord for the gift of many holy vocations.

With the beginning of the calendar year 2022, we enter the depth of the celebration of the 150^th anniversary and we are reminded, with this great anniversary, what the spirit of our Institute is, where we started from, what our origins were, but also what was the faith of our sisters, the creativity and apostolic passion. We are called to revive our spiritual heritage. The hope is that we can be ‘generative’, thinking about the future, and generate it starting today”.

Joy and gratitude for the gift received, entrusted to the commitment and responsibility of each one, explode in the hymn of the Magnificat, an expression of praise and amazement in recognizing human littleness in the face of the immensity of God’s plan of salvation.