Christmas greetings to Mother and the Council – Generalate

Rome (Italy). On 24 December 2021 the FMA communities of Mary Help of Christians of the Generalate (RCG) and Sacred Heart, of the Roman Province of St. John Bosco (IRO), expressed their Christmas greetings to the Mother General of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sr. Chiara Cazzuola, and to the General Councilors present.

The uniqueness of Christmas 2021, with the XXIV General Chapter recently completed and at the gates of the 150^th anniversary of the Foundation of the FMA Institute, suggested the idea of re-reading part of a Christmas wish from each of the ten Mothers General who on the occasion of Christmas, reached every FMA, the Salesian Family, the Educating Communities, and the young people of the 5 continents.

The Prologue of St. John was the setting for the presentation with the first Vespers of the Solemnity of Christmas, followed by the greetings of the Mothers:  Mother Mazzarello, who in 1880 on her last Christmas, asks the Child Jesus to give His daughters true humility, charity, obedience, and love for Him;  Mother Caterina Daghero, invites everyone to progress in the practice of God’s love;  Mother Luisa Vaschetti exhorts us to pray for peace in the nations and to preserve that peace which is the triumph of grace… Up to and including Mother Yvonne Reungoat, who sees the history of the FMA Institute as “part of a current of good that spans the millennia of the  life of humanity and invites us to remember the ‘great graces’ received from the beginning, which have ensured that the plot of these 150 years was interwoven with ‘Grace’”.

The depth and variety of intentions of these auspicious expressions resulted in the singing of the Magnificat. At the end of Vespers, the wishes of the two Communities were expressed with a song and through the words of the Animator of the Generalate, Sr. Carla Castellino, and a representative of the Community of the Sacred Heart, who offered a gift in the name of the sisters.

Mother Chiara reciprocated the good wishes by recalling from the liturgy of the day, the desire of King David to build a house for God and continued, “I think that our vocation as FMA is to be a house, a house for God, a house for young people and for the people entrusted to us, because God incarnates Himself in humanity. Christmas reminds us of this. It is a great mystery because it goes beyond all our perspectives; God is incarnated in our fragile and small nature”.

Starting from a reflection on the current reality of young people and on some relational difficulties, she concluded, “We are the ‘prolongation of Christmas’. Every time that with our humanity we offer a light, a smile, a gesture, a sign of benevolence and love, we become a sign of Christmas for others. The meaning of Christmas is this, we are Christmas for others when we let this sign of divinity pass through our small, poor, and fragile humanity, which is incarnated in the light, love, and benevolence that we can spread”.