mother of hope prayer chapter 2025 1

My Dear Sisters, Dear Friends,
o
n this day of Pentecost, we begin together, as a Congregation and with all the friends of Eugénie Caps, our year of prayer and preparation to the 2025 General Chapter. It is a year of graces that the Lord offers us. And our daily prayer will be the 4 chosen verses of the Veni Creator Spiritus. Come Spirit Creator visit us, come enlighten our souls, fill our hearts with Grace and Light. You, the Gift, the Defender, the Love, the Strength and the Sweetness. You who inspires us, put in us your light. Come strengthen our bodies in their weakness and give us your strength.

The celebration of Pentecost this year opens us to welcome the strength of the Spirit of Jesus with intense trust, a renewed trust, the same that led Mary to the Upper Room. Yes, we are all invited, in this Pentecost 2024, to make room to the power of Spirit of Jesus.

We, the Spiritan Sisters, are called to recognize, each one in her Community, in her District, and with wonder, that the power of the Spirit of Jesus walks with us step by step since the beginnings of the Institute. If today the deep desire to do the Will of God dwells in us in the Congregation, it is by the power of the Spirit of Jesus present and acting in our history. It is a mystery of Grace! It is really a mystery of Grace, when we discover how small we are in terms of numbers and contemplate the action of the Spirit of Jesus through our Sisters, our Works and our human fragility. It is truly the work of God and His Grace in and through us. And it is there, in the face of our human vulnerability, that we see that the vitality of the Congregation is not reduced to the number of members growing or decreasing, but rather to the fruitfulness and creativity of the audacity of the same. An audacity in its members who want to trust in the Word of the Lord to our Foundress: “The work will succeed, I desire it with all my heart”. Cf. My Vocation, Story written by Sister Eugenie Caps, Spiritan Collection 3, page 54. It is this generous fruitfulness and creativity of the Sisters within communities and works that bears witness to the vitality of the Congregation. A Life in abundance conceived by the Lord and which escapes any human figure, and which sometimes escapes us from ourselves when we want to reduce it to numerical lamentations.

Gédéon et l’Ange

And I think of our valiant warrior Gideon in the Old Testament. When the angel of the Lord appeared to him, he began to lament: “Pardon me, my Lord! If the Lord is with us, why did all this happen to us? What became of all these wonders that our fathers told us? But today the Lord has abandoned us”. Cf. Book of Judges, 6:12-13. Gideon’s reaction is indeed our mirror. The Lord, looking at Gideon, answers him: “Go with the strength that is in you. Am I not sending you?” Cf. Book of Judges, 6, 14. Strengthened by this Word, we too are called to depart, animated by the audacity of the Spirit of the Risen One.

Like the few who were the Apostles in the Upper Room, let us also present ourselves in the upper room, in this place of waiting, of persevering waiting, in this place of peace and prayerful intimacy in order to renew our brotherhood and to witness to the power of the Spirit of Jesus in us. Strength given to those who listen to His Word with the ear of a disciple. In this sense, Fr François Libermann encourages us to become “fervent and generous souls who give themselves totally and are ready to undertake and suffer for the glory of our Master”. Cf. Notes and Documents, I, 662, 1839. Let us thus remember, contemplating through the imagination of our hearts this beautiful story. A story, full of freedom and blessing: “When the day of Pentecost came, at the end of the fifty days after Easter, they were all gathered together. Suddenly a sound came from the sky like a violent gust of wind: the house where they sat was filled with it. Then appeared to them tongues that were said to be of fire, which spread out, and touched each person there. All were filled with the Holy Spirit”. Acts of the Apostles 2, 1-4.

In this thrust of openness and welcoming, each one of us in his or her proper place, we abandon ourselves to the Spirit and delicately enter this interior disposition of trusting expectation. This expectation in trust is necessary for us to grow in humility. For to wait is to humbly accept that the best is always before us and to agree with docility to the rhythm of the wind of the Spirit. It is a beautiful exercise on this Pentecost 2024, to let our lives be filled more with Grace and Light. We come in this way, perhaps without realizing too much, to open a passage to the Spirit of the Lord. A very new passage, which rejects conformism and opens wide to the fruitfulness of Hope.

My Sisters and Friends, let us recognize that in the curves of our lives, the Lord has sown many benefits. Let us recognize them and give thanks to the Lord of the Gift. I would like to invite you to make a list, not exhaustive, but still a list, highlighting the benefits of the Lord in your lives. The blessings of the Lord you remember. Perhaps the most significant benefits that keep you alive today and help you continue on a path of fidelity. Then, from this list, you could share in community, in life teams, the action of the Spirit in you.  Let us not forget that free times of sharing, in community, strengthen in us the courage and strength to seek God’s will unceasingly. And may the Lord give the Spirit without measure to those whom He sends, to those who obey Him with a generous and available heart. Cf. Acts of the Apostles 5, 32.

Then, at the end of the sharing, we can conclude with a moment of thanksgiving together. “We hear them all speak in our tongues of the wonders of God”. Cf. Acts of the Apostles 2:11. Thus, each will give thanks for this strength of the Lord, who had never let her go. And we know that the strength of the Lord depends on our Congregation’s fidelity to its Charism solely missionary. The vigor of the Lord also flows, undoubtedly, from the dynamic and creative fidelity of each of us to the Spirit of Gratuity. Let us not be afraid to commit ourselves more, wherever each one is, to this way of the Gospel, for the power of the Spirit of Jesus is with us. And we think of all our Sisters whose communities are placed in areas of great insecurity and even violence. May the Spirit of the Risen One guard you and watch over each one of you, for it is He, the Spirit, who makes us live.

Prayer Chapter 2025

My Sisters, let us walk, walk and walk under the guidance of the Spirit. Cf. Galatians 5, 25.

To all, holy and fruitful feast of Pentecost, may the Grace and Light of the Spirit of the Risen One invades our hearts, our families, and our communities.

It is in this tenderness and in this joy, that the Spirit of brotherhood inspires us, that I embrace you all,

Sister Olga Fonseca
Superior General of the Spiritan Sisters