Rome (Italy). Pope Francis, in the Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et exultate (GS 9), defines holiness as the most beautiful face of the Church. The Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians are therefore the most beautiful and successful expression of the feminine Salesian Charism.
They are the concrete sign that the Rule of Life of the FMA, and the pedagogy of the Preventive System, have in themselves all that is needed to bear fruits of evangelical exemplarity. They also remind us that each FMA, among the challenges of contemporaneity, has everything necessary to grow in holiness and to be generative of holy and abundant life.
Furthermore, Pope Francis affirms that the Lord has filled his Church, and in it the FMA Institute, “with special gifts with the Word, the Sacraments, the sanctuaries, the life of the communities, the witness of the saints, and a multiform beauty which proceeds from the love of the Lord, ‘as a bride adorns herself with jewels’.” (GS 15). The Pontiff, in the Apostolic Exhortation, directs us to consider the typical elements of the Charism as gifts of Jesus’ love for the Institute.
Mornese, Valdocco, Nizza, the Sanctuary of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians are, for every Daughter of Mary Help of Christians, the places of holiness where God is manifested and the home of her own sanctification, together with the young. The FMA candidates for the altars are “the bridegroom’s jewels with which the bride is greatly adorned” that, in this 150th anniversary of the foundation of the FMA Institute, each one is called to make shine among the sisters and to circulate with passion.
It is a joy and a commitment for all to make their lives known, to imitate them, and make them imitated by the young people and adults who attend the FMA Houses, and to invoke their intercession, so that they may intervene with the Lord in favor of difficulties and needs.
The General Secretariat of the FMA Institute invites all the FMA to collaborate actively to animate the Educating Communities to the multiform beauty and richness of Salesian Holiness.
On the website of the FMA Institute, in the Resource Management, under the items Salesian Holiness and Salesian Spirituality, it is possible to find the material to deepen the life of the FMA set out on the path towards Holiness.
For information, requests for material, and to communicate graces received, it is possible to contact the General Secretariat via the new address animazionesantitafma@cgfma.org
