Dear Sisters,

Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit be yours!

                  We have begun a new year and we hope that this fast-moving time finds us ready to embrace it as a favorable time for our sanctification and for the transformation of all humanity.

          As a Congregation, we are in the preparation stage for our General Assembly and we have many opportunities for reflection and delving into our call to be a prophetic presence in the Church and in the world.  We recognize the call to “begin afresh from Acuto” to find the fire of our origins again, rediscovering the power of the charismatic gift we have received that is needed to deal with the inevitable changes while maintaining the foundations of the faith that do not change, but can be moved and pitched in ever new lands so as to accompany the people journeying in history.” (Working Document for the Continental Stage, n.26).

          The upcoming celebratory events laid out along our path are also a help for renewing the joy of God’s gift within us.  We gratefully enter into the year of preparation for the 190^th anniversary of our foundation (March 4, 2024) and we joyfully celebrate the 20th anniversary of the canonization of St. Maria De Mattias (May 18, 2023).  These are important milestones for renewing our commitment to the Lord as we grow in our vocation as adorer-missionaries of the Precious Blood.

          As we celebrate the sacred history of our community, we want to experience these events as one big opportunity allowing us to draw light from the holiness of Maria De Mattias and savor anew the richness of our charismatic identity by renewing our sense of belonging to a living body in continuous transformation. 

          In the dynamics of the Church, we are embracing the call to live our synodal vocation more intensely and to recognize how St. Maria De Mattias was a prophetic woman opening important perspectives in this direction.  She strove to share the mission with all those she served and included every person along her path, allowing herself be evangelized by every encounter and experience, widening the space in her tent and letting each person encounter the Crucified Love.

          “My daughter, let us happily work hard for Jesus Christ and bring souls to his side.  They cost him his Blood.  I recommend charity and patience.  Every person is dear to Jesus’ heart.”  In these words we can gather the spiritual legacy left to us by St. Maria De Mattias. 

          She discovered that, first and foremost, faith is an attitude of the heart capable of arousing an unwavering and tireless self-giving that becomes unconditional openness to all and an opportunity for change in every concrete situation.  In this light, we understand how for St. Maria De Mattias there was no better place to find God and help to look for him in the heart of every woman and man of her time.  In listening to the human heart, St. Maria De Mattias made room for God and set out with everyone, recognizing and valuing each one. 

Her attention in recognizing the concern for what is human as essential is moving.  In the school of the incarnation she had learned to read history and to live in it with confidence.  With an intimate sense of an everyday life inhabited by God, St. Maria De Mattias lived in newness and knew how to make her time a place of encounter and renewed openness to life. 

            She was capable of seeing and taking on what matters by living simply and in constant openness to the newness woven in daily life of closeness and sharing.

            Through her profound commitment to God and remaining steadfast in the love of her Lord, she sees the beauty of a life lived in freedom, where Jesus is her only treasure, her Supreme Good, and the way for loving all without possessing anything. 

            Through her experience, each of us is encouraged to grow in the awareness that we can encounter God every day and following Jesus is a choice that is renewed in daily life and makes life harmonious and unified.  For St. Maria De Mattias, encountering Jesus crucified is the source for continuing the journey and the strength to remain steadfast in faithfulness to the little things that make up daily life.  As consecrated women, we too fulfill our vocation by cultivating the art of relationships.  It is in living the “mysticism of encounter”, listening to others and searching together for the way to follow that we can shape our identity and a synodal lifestyle. 

          For St. Maria De Mattias, what truly matters is cultivating new relationships, feeling and living as sisters, creating an authentic life together and being at the service of each other through listening and dialogue, creating a climate conducive to sharing and co-responsibility and the participation of everyone.  Each person is holy ground, possibility and treasure because she is paid for at a dear price, with the Blood of Christ.  According to each person’s vocation, we are all called and needed in the task of evangelization in a synodal style. 

            In this way, the water in the jugs of our daily lives is transformed into the wine of joy and newness and missionary life takes on the flavor and fullness so needed at this time. (Pope Francis).

• In light of St. Maria De Mattias’ charismatic experience,

what choices can I make to cultivate the art of relationship?

          Let us allow the Holy Spirit, who enflamed St. Maria De Mattias’ heart,  to gently transform us and make us capable of making room for all so that each person may receive life in abundance.