Rome (Italy). On 12 March 2022, live streaming from the Generalate of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians in Rome, a Holy Rosary was broadcast which united all the FMA and the Educating Communities of the world in prayer for peace. In the Chapter hall, with Mother and the General Council, the FMA of Mary Help of Christians Community of the Generalate participated in the prayer.
Mother General, Sr. Chiara Cazzuola, with her Council, proposed this moment as an invocation for peace and an end to hostilities in every part of the world. “It will be yet another public and collective manifestation of our trust in the powerful intercession of Mary Help of Christians, our educational commitment to peace, and an effective denunciation of all forms of violence and injustice”.
During the introduction of the Vicar General, Sr. María del Rosario García Ribas, Mother Chiara brought a symbolic dove to the feet of Our Lady and the world. The prayer opened with the hymn of the Salve Regina performed in the Chapel of the Mornese Collegio by the Novices of the International Novitiates Sr. Teresa Valsè Pantellini of Rome and Mary Help of Christians of Castel Gandolfo.
The decades of the Rosary are marked by testimonies of some FMA and communities who live in conflict zones. The first testimony comes from a city in Poland on the border with Ukraine, from the chapel of a religious community engaged in the initial reception of refugees, where a Ukrainian FMA is working to respond to the needs of the people who arrive. A young woman talks about the fear and difficulties of the journey and expresses gratitude for being welcomed into a safe place.
With prayer we want to embrace the whole world. a lamp is lit for each Continent, carried by a Councilor to Mary’s feet. The gift of peace is invoked in Africa, remembering Madagascar and listening to the testimony of an FMA community of Ethiopia; in America, with the voice of the Sisters of Haiti and Venezuela; in Asia, with touching testimony from Myanmar. “Mary teaches us to guard the things that God is doing even in the midst of darkness. Love is patient, only love helps us to believe and allows us to hope against all hope in the triumph of life over death,” says the guiding voice. The last decade of the Rosary is prayed with Oceania and the words of the FMA of the Solomon Islands.
Mother Chiara concludes with a prayer of entrustment to Mary Help of Christians in difficult times:
O Mary Help of Christians, we entrust ourselves entirely to you!
You who are the Powerful Virgin,
Remain close to each of your daughters and sons.
Repeat to Jesus for us, “They have no wine!”
They have no health; they have no serenity; they have no hope!
They have no peace!”
So that Jesus may renew the miracle of salvation.
At this uncertain time due to violence,
injustice, the war that strikes humanity,
especially in the small and the weak, in many parts of the world,
help governments to abandon the logic of death
linked to the desire for power, glory, money,
so that they can always and only seek the good of peoples, without discrimination.
Mary, to your powerful intercession we entrust
our educational commitment to peace,
in the rejection of all forms of violence and injustice.
Guard the Educating Communities which, in the different parts of the world,
continue to spend themselves for the good of the people,
and support with commitment the hope of the
of children and young people for a better world. Amen.
In the chat on the side of the screen, messages in various languages flow non-stop from all the Communities, FMA, and people connected from all over the world, expressing closeness and solidarity towards the populations and communities of the FMA Sisters affected by various types of suffering. They are grateful for this moment of prayer lived in communion with the whole FMA Institute to ask together for the gift of peace. “Only love can unite and nourish hope, only love can generate fraternity”.
