Rome (Italy). The Superior General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, in Circular No. 1034 presents to the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians Strenna 2024 of the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime:
«The dream that makes you dream»
A heart that transforms ‘wolves’ into ‘lambs”
Mother explains that “The intent of the Strenna is to propose for our reflection the dream of Don Bosco that still animates the Salesian mission in the world, not only to remember our origins, but above all, to help us rethink our vocation and our fidelity in today”.
In this regard, she takes up the effective expression of Mother Mazzarello, “now is the time to revive the fire,” which invites us “To renew our being Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and the educational passion that distinguishes us in the Church”. In his Message to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis affirms, “it takes courage to love and to walk, to go further. The effort, today, is to transmit passion to those who have lost it for a long time”.
“Dear Sisters, we believe that God wants to do and is able to do great things in each of us!” Expressing the certainty that the Word “is light on our way” (cf. Psalm 119,105) and “is capable of awakening the best resources and energies to respond in this historical moment, to the mission that the Lord entrusts to us”. She also encourages us to live as ‘lovers’ rather than as ‘accustomed’, to “animate and accompany with continuous discernment, the vocational growth of every person entrusted to us”.
Of the Dream at 9 years of age that the Bicentennial celebrates in 2024, she then resumes the centrality of the figure of Mary, identified as the ‘Teacher’, whom Don Bosco in 1885, indicated to the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of Nizza Monferrato, that with her effective and consoling maternal presence, “Mary is here and walks in this house” (cf. Cronistoria V 52). Mother Chiara observes that, “It is always she who continues to perform wonders in our life and in our educational mission”.
Another aspect of the Dream highlighted by Mother is that of our presence among and with the young, that the Founders “lived fully and which Mother Mazzarello herself embodied in Mornese in a marvelous way with all its feminine nuances”.
In order to achieve a significant presence in the contemporaneity, she therefore urges the FMA to “have the courage to constantly invest in the formation on which the quality of life of the Institute and the fruitfulness of its mission depend” and to “to awaken and nourish the vocational culture that will truly make our communities generative in the Church and in the various contexts where God calls us today” (cf. Presentation Acts GC XXIV).
At the end of Circular No. 1034, Mother Chiara thanked the Rector Major for his solicitation through the Strenna, “to renew our commitment to be generative communities of life in the Salesian Family, in the feminine-maternal-Marian dimension that, as Daughters, we are called to make shine in daily life and mission”. She concludes by wishing the Salesian Confreres, the various groups of the Salesian Family, the Educating Communities, the young, the Sisters and their families, a 2024 of peace and hope.
“Let us continue to invoke the Holy Spirit to enlighten governments, to give courage to all those who work for peace and the good, to console those who suffer because of war, violence, and persecution. May He sustain and encourage those young people and adults who work for a future of social fraternity that respects human rights. Let us entrust all humanity to the protection of Mary, Guide, Help, and Queen of Peace”.
