A path of hope and missionary joy

Rome (Italy) On 1 August 2020, the panels of the Charism Exhibit of the period of animation and government of Mother Yvonne Reungoat were inaugurated in Rome, at the FMA Generalate, in the presence of Mother General, the General Council of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, and the local House Council of the Generalate (RCG).

The Secretary General, Sister Piera Cavaglià, introduced the moment by saying: “History is a continuous dynamism that unwinds from the past, involves the present, and projects itself towards the future. This dynamism is interwoven with events, dates, but above all with encounters, relationships, faces, charismatic creativity, holiness in daily life that from Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello reaches us, our Mother, the center of unity of the Institute.”

The exhibit update concerns three sections: panels with the date and photos of the start of the presence of the FMA in the 5 continents:  Europe (1872), America (1877), Asia (1891), Africa (1893), Oceania (1954 ); panels with the period of government of Mother Yvonne Reungoat, from 2008 to 2021; statistics with the number of houses and FMA in the world throughout the years of government of the various Mother Generals.

The section on Mother Yvonne, entitled “2008-2021 – A path of hope and missionary joy”, is representative of an intense and eventful period.

The first panel presents the context in which Mother Yvonne Reungoat’s period is located: the reference to some significant events experienced by the Institute, the process of reconfiguring some Provinces, the beginning of the presence of the FMA in new Nations, the path of the Church within which the Institute is located, the reference to some challenges of the social context and to events that directly affect Mother, such as her election to the Presidency of USMI (2018), and her appointment as Member of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (2019).

For the occasion, the curator of the exhibit, Sister Angela Marzorati, chose as background music the soundtrack “Sequences of a life – Oratorio on the life of Mary Mazzarello” with the music of Maestro Ennio Morricone, recently deceased, a work created in 1981 on the occasion of the centenary of the death of Mother Mazzarello.

The inauguration of the update of the charism exhibit comes at the end of the 1^st year of preparation for the 150^th anniversary of the foundation of the Institute dedicated to the recognition and thresholds of the opening – 5 August 2020 – of the second year, which invites the FMA to accept the mandate: “I entrust them to you” (cf. Circular 1000).