Turin (Italy). On 24 October 2021 at Turin, Valdocco, the XXXI Marian Day on the theme “Grow in communion” addressed to associates, aspirants, and all the adults, and families that follow the journey of the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA). At the meeting, dedicated to deepening the Marian dimension in the association journey, to sharing graces, and to renewing entrustment to Mary, there were about 170 members of the Primary ADMA of Turin and other places in Italy.

After the welcome greetings from the Provincial of the Province of Mary Help of Christians (ICP) of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Fr. Leonardo Mancini, and of the Vicar of the Province of Mary Help of Christians (IPI) of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Sr. Maria Torre, the participants listened to the intervention of Fr. Roberto Carelli, Professor of Theological Anthropology at the Faculty of Theology of the Salesian Pontifical University of Turin-Crocetta and spiritual animator of the primary ADMA of Turin, entitled “The family, our family, my family“.

In the year of the Amoris Laetitia Family, which will end on 26 June 2022 in Rome with the X World  Meeting of Families, Fr. Carelli took into consideration the reality and the challenges of the family starting from Pope Francis’ Encyclical Amoris Laetitiae (AL 32-37), inviting “to live and testify, taste, and let taste the good reasons for faithful and fruitful family ties, intimate and social, affectionate and generous, avoiding the closures and judgments that contradict the family as a place of maturation of freedom and love.”

A Salesian Cooperator and a couple belonging to the Contemplative Fraternity of Nazareth then gave their testimony, underlining the Marian dimension lived in the respective Groups of the Salesian Family. Fr. Alejandro Guevara Rodríguez, world spiritual animator of ADMA, concluded the first moment with a pastoral reflection, starting from the experience of the pandemic, on the path of growth in communion with others, as family, as Salesian Family, and as Church.

A second moment took place in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, with the prayer of the Rosary, a time of Eucharistic Adoration, and the Eucharistic Celebration presided over by the Vicar of the Rector Major, Fr. Stefano Martoglio who, on World Mission Day, highlighted the aspect of the missionary spirit in the experience of the ADMA Association. Spreading devotion to Mary Help of Christians and the Eucharist is the specific mission of ADMA, which brings the lymph to the universal mission of the Church.

Sr. Lucrecia Uribe, FMA, ADMA world animator, then greeted the participants of Marian Day 2021 taking as a starting point the theme of the synodality of the Synod of Bishops in progress, proposing three attitudes to be privileged: becoming experts in the art of encounter, listening with the heart, discerning; and  three risks to avoid: formalism, self-referencing and immobility. To conclude, she indicated three opportunities to reinforce synodality in the ADMA Group: to be what Don Bosco thought  for all devotees of Mary, that is, an Association with an ecclesial breath, to take time to listen to those close to us, and to become an Association that practices closeness.

The Marian Day was also an opportunity to proceed with the renewal of the Turin ADMA Presidency Council for the next four years.

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