With the Immaculate Conception, generative communities in the heart of contemporaneity

Rome (Italy). Inserted in the season of Advent, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is celebrated on 8 December and prepares us to relive the mystery of Redemption: Mary, who found grace with God, was preserved from sin to become the Mother of the Savior and the Mother of us all.

The Immaculate Conception is a feast dear to the Salesian tradition and has a significant role in the life of Don Bosco – who said: “All our greatest things had their beginning and fulfillment on the day of the Immaculate Conception” (MB 17,510) – and of Mary Domenica Mazzarello, who from her youth consecrated herself to God in the Association of the Daughters of St. Mary Immaculate (9 December 1855) with the commitment to cultivate and radiate virtue and purity in the name of the Virgin. (cf. Cronistoria I, p. 69)

For Mother Mazzarello, the true Superior of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians is Mary Immaculate Help of Christians and in her Letters, she exhorts the FMA to live intensely the preparation for this Solemnity: “We are approaching the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Our Holy Rule wants us to celebrate it with great solemnity, in addition to this, it must be one of the most beautiful feasts for us, who are Daughters of Mary. So let us prepare ourselves to celebrate it really well” (L 27).

The Novena, from 29 November to 7 December 2020, is an opportunity to live in depth with the Educating Communities and with the whole Salesian Family, the preparation for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, asking Mary for help in becoming communities that generate life in the heart of contemporaneity, at this particular time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The FMA Salesian Family  Sector  shares the proposal of the Novena which, as explained by Sister Maria Luisa Miranda, General Councilor for the Sector, in her Letter of presentation, takes up the three nuclei of the Working Instrument of the XXIV General Chapter, “to favor their in-depth study in the Provinces and help awaken the original freshness of the vocational fruitfulness of the Institute.”

The Novena is divided into three triduums:  vocational communities (from 29 November to 1 December), communities in synodality (from 2 to 4 December),  missionary and prophetic communities (from 5 to 7 December).  Each triduum includes some ‘moments’ to be lived according to the creativity of each FMA House and, if possible, together with the whole Educating Community.

Under the guidance of Mary, the Institute wishes to travel with all the Educating Communities, the journey towards the celebration of GC XXIV with a maternal style and gaze, to embrace the future with hope.