Mornese (Italy). The Piedmont Province of Mary Help of Christians (IPI), in whose land the 2022 World Gratitude Day will take place on 24, 25, 26 April 2022 – in Turin, Mornese, Nizza with the theme “They are my daughters”, the website www.festadelgrazie.org, makes available to the FMA Communities and Educating Communities an itinerary to prepare for the event.

IDENTITY

Identity is the key word that accompanies the second week, from 4 to 10 April, set in Mornese where Don Bosco, on 5 August 1872, the date of the religious profession of the first Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, addresses them saying, “You now belong to a religious family that belongs entirely to Our Lady. (…) Hold your beautiful title of Daughters of Mary Help of Christians as glory, and often think that your Institute must be the living monument of Don Bosco’s gratitude to the Great Mother of God, invoked under the title of Help of Christians.”

A video leads to the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin wanted by Don Bosco as a monument to Our Lady, and to Mornese, to those moments in which the first 11 sisters become Daughters of Mary Help of Christians:

The texts avaiable on the website offer ideas to the Communities to experience during the week, celebratory or formative moments in preparation for the Feast. For prayer, on the YouTube Channel you can find  il video of the song Vi lascio la pace (I leave you peace) (Ps 131) by Fr. Domenico Machetta.

Among the biblical ideas that present female figures from the Old Testament in which to contemplate the features of Mary, in the second week the identity of Ruth is presented, who is modeled through ‘clips’. In fact, she leaves her homeland for an unknown land, and by choosing to stay beside her mother-in-law Noemi, she prepares to become a mother, nurturing her knowledge that she is her daughter (Ruth 2: 4-12).

The proposals for commitment value community sharing on how each FMA experiences being a living monument today, where she is inserted. The possibility of taking up again and studying the Coat-of-arms of the FMA Institute, is also suggested to better know the identity of the FMA Institute and create a livelier sense of belonging.

On the website www.festadelgrazie.org it is also possible to find a special entrustment to Mary in the various languages that will accompany the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians to live the time towards the World Feast of Gratitude, with a grateful heart for the journey of the FMA Institute in the 150 years since the Foundation and with the desire to continue to be today a living monument of gratitude.

The page Maria nel mondo (Mary in the world) is being enriched with images of Mary representative of every nation where the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians are present and with hints to the wonders that Our Lady has worked and continues to work for the different world populations and realities.