
CONGREGAZIONE
SUORE DELLA PROVVIDENZA ROSMINIANE
Via Aurelia, 773
ROMA
My dear Sisters,
Recently, I heard something first-hand which still
remains in my mind: how in past years, in Borgomanero, in a large hall, the Sisters gathered officially on 16 August, to ‘listen’ to the reading of the Distribution, during which each one heard the announcement of her own name;following in church, in thanksgiving with the song:“IL TUO GUSTO E NON IL MIO“,(your taste not mine) sometimes combined with silent tears.
This was an outwardsign of an interior disposition. The Sisters gathered ready to move ‘overnight’ – without knowing where or with whom – to another place, to another community, along with their few ‘possessions’, without discussion. Perhaps we can say times and circumstances have changed…
While celebrating the feast of the Assumption, we call to mind Mary,whoduring her earthly pilgrimage, lived her ‘Fiat’ with her heart fixed on welcoming what God asked, in every single moment of her life.
Bl Antonio Rosminiwrites in a letter: “The thing is to go steady: age quod agis [‘get on with the job’]. When we have our minds fixed on doing one thing, nothing else will have the power to distract us from attending to it. Now the work we have taken in hand is that of striking rootsand forming ourselves according to the spirit of the Institute. Once (with divine help) we are formed and incorporated into the Institute, then through obedience we shall be able to work fruitfully, since what obedience gives us to do is the will of God … Let us all concentrate on the present: in this we serve God; here is our peace; here is all our happiness.
This is what it means to go steadily, to do what obedience enjoins on us; to do it with total love, with complete abandonment into the arms of God and those of our dear Mother, Mary. What blessed security is to be found in this way of living wholly in the present– in this beloved abandonment of ourselves into God’s hands! (AL. vol 1 Lett 108)
Times and ‘ways of doing’ may have changed but this advice of Rosmini to Gentiliin July 1831, remainsa constant challenge andspeaks clearly to us today.What type of roots have I planted? Am I cultivating them? How ready am Ito listen and to do what God asks?
Once again, we come afresh to this time of the year, when many Sisters are on holiday, visiting family or ‘on retreat’, while others have already begun the community year.
With our hearts full of gratitude for the year that is past and remembering the Sisters who have returned to the Father’s House, let us enter wholly and joyfully into the mission entrusted to us.
A happy Feast of the Assumption of Mary, with all the blessings of this new RosminianYear.
God bless,
c.m.
[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/Qjnc0H8utks” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen ]