"We continue to listen to the desire of those women asking to deepen their baptismal call in the Spirituality of the Blood of Christ through secular consecration". (AG Acts 2023)

Renewal for one year of the lay consecration of Alejandra Pagliari.

On January 22, 2024, Alejandra Pagliari, renewed her lay consecration for one year. The rite took place during the morning Eucharistic celebration in the church of the Precious Blood contiguous to the general house. It was attended by ASCs from the international community and some Latin American friends.

Sr. Maria Hughes, general superior, in her opening greeting, recalled that Alejandra's lay consecration is part of the journey that the ASC Congregation started with the 2017 General Assembly. It requires discernment and openness to the future that God is gradually pointing out to all of us.

We sense the strong call TO BE:
- witnesses to the Truth of the Gospel;
- rooted and grounded in the divine Word;
- in love with Love who always goes before us.

Dear Sisters,
As we write this letter, we begin the Novena for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus.  We Adorers of the Blood of Christ find in this season, the great gift of God made one with us in flesh and blood.  A Christ who comes to be with us in all things, but sin.  A Christ of the Gospel, calling us to treasure the gift of our own human creation and dignity and live credible and hope-filled lives.  This season reminds us that in the simple things of life, God can become manifest.  We not only come to adore Christ in the manger, we adore Christ in our own Sisters, our co-workers, our Associates, Sojourners, Lay Consecrated Women.  We adore Christ in those we meet along the way each day, in those seeking a safe home, a place away from war, the children, the elderly, our actions on behalf of our “common home” and through our prayers for peace, for reconciliation, and for our aching world. 

Pope Francis, on the first Sunday of Advent offered a way through Advent to Christmas.  “To encounter Jesus who comes in every brother and sister who needs us and to share with them what we can:  listening, time, concrete assistance.  Dear friends, it will be good for us today to ask ourselves how we can prepare a welcoming heart for the Lord.”  Angelus, December 3, 2023

As we enter into the holy season of Christmas perhaps we could;

Listen deeply in particular to the hearts we might not so easily hear.

Take the time to better know ourselves and  understand the “other” with hearts for communion. 

To be a credible and authentic presence, sowing hope in a world so fractured and fragile.

Mary and Joseph are models for us of these things, they followed the voice of God in their hearts and their dreams.  They entered into a new way of being parents to the Messiah, who came as a tiny child.  They knew themselves before God and welcomed the world in communion with them.  They too lived in a very fractured and fragile world. They lived in truth and were present to God’s initiatives sowing hope.

So as we sing our favorite carols of Christmas, let us be people of welcome.  May God-With-Us, Emmanuel, find a song in our hearts.  A song that sings of peace, welcome, hope and healing.  God is truly with us and within us, and that is the Good News of Christmas.

What will be your Song of Christmas?

Is there someone or a group you might need to attune your heart to listen more deeply and seek communion?

How might you concretely choose to “sow HOPE”?

We join our hearts in gratitude to God for the life we are in communion,

December 16, 2023

On the afternoon of July 10 in our General Assembly we welcomed some members of the Community of St. Egidio. It was a time of sharing about the collaboration between our Congregation and this Community of lay people that has intensified in recent years.

The Sant'Egidio Community was born in 1968, in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, on the initiative of Andrea Riccardi, in a high school in the center of Rome. Over the years it has become a network of communities in more than 70 countries around the world (mainly in Africa and Latin America). Prayer, Poor, Peace are the foundation of the lives of women and men, lay people, united by a bond of fraternity and committed to voluntary and gratuitous service to the least.

Since 1989, the Community has been recognized by the Holy See as a Public Lay Association of the Church.

At the basis of the two charisms, that of ASC and that of St. Egidio, we can grasp the common desire to change the world. The inspiration of the Spirit that prompted St. Maria De Mattias to desire the reform of the world starts from her falling in love with Jesus and the Gospel and takes her to the poor and disadvantaged of her time. In the same way, the first small group of enthusiastic young people, who dreamed of a more humane and beautiful world for all peoples, began reading and praying on the Word of God and allowed themselves to be led toward the peripheries of society in a concrete commitment to the most disadvantaged of our realities. 

The key words for all two Communities are life grounded in the Gospel and looking to the world to catch the signs of the times and try to offer the concrete answers.

Our friends from Sant'Egidio have testified to us their gratitude to ASCs, religious women who approach others, especially the poor, with the heart and eyes of women embedded in the global world. They are grateful, above all, for the collaboration that is developing between us. This collaboration has become very significant in recent years through the initiatives we are doing together in Rome in the Generalate.

When the Community was able to operationalize the Humanitarian Corridors initiative in 2015 to combat the trafficking of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, our congregation opened the house for reception. In recent years in the Generalate House, the rooms next to the gatehouse are always inhabited by people arriving through the Humanitarian Corridors, currently a Syrian family with four young children resides there.   

Every Sunday in our Precious Blood Church there is a Eucharistic celebration animated by members of the lay community. Every year we participate with them in a special celebration to remember the abandoned people who die on the road; together we pray for peace... With them we try to be close to the elderly and lonely people in our neighborhood, and in this sense the Mass and lunch with the poor on Christmas Day is very nice. Every week the community in the General House prepares 50 bags with sandwiches and juice that members of the Sant'Egidio community distribute to people sleeping on the street.

With the wish that our collaboration will continue and expand to other countries where our two Communities are present, we concluded the sharing by praying together.

Sr Ana Marija Antolović, ASC