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Introduction

Our image of God colours our attitudes to life, persons and events. God incarnate in Jesus Christ walks with us through life. Jesus became human to reveal to us the face of God - Father and Mother. His relationship to God as ‘Abba’ was intimate all through his earthly life; it was a source of joy, security and strength, even in the darkest moments of the Passion. This intimacy gave strength to embrace the Father’s will: “Father, not my will but yours de done.” (cf. Mk 14:36; Mt 26:40).

Mary of the Passion, found the source of her strength in the assurance that God is close, intimate, living within as Trinity, sustaining her in the Eucharistic Presence. Love prompted her to accept the Cross and forgive those who made her suffer. She experienced deeply the grace of being daughter and entered into this intimate relationship when she spoke to God. She wanted us too to enter into this relationship which gave her much joy!

On 22nd June 1899, she wrote: “Become more and more a child of “Our Father who is in heaven”… I would like to see you develop a great devotion to the Our Father. You know that Saint Theresa found in this prayer that comes from Jesus Himself, a whole world for contemplatives and souls of prayer. As for me, I do not ask you to look at many things, but only to remember that it is Jesus Himself who has told us: You will pray like this: Nothing more than in these words: May your kingdom come, you have your whole vocation of intercessor, of victim adorer.

I stop at the first petition of the Our Father. Continue it at the foot of the Tabernacle and may the Holy Spirit enlighten you on all the rest. In order that it may be so, I bless you...” (PLG 79)

Missionaries, we are being constantly called to review our life in our rapidly evolving world fraught with challenges, divisions and contradictions. As Franciscans, we are challenged to become

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instruments of peace and reconciliation, accepting differences as enrichment, transcending barriers of fear and prejudice to create a global family where all can live as sisters and brothers. Meditating on the following texts of Mary of the Passion, could help us make this a reality, so that every time we pray the Our Father, we will renew our commitment to bring about the Reign of God, the reign of love, justice, peace and reconciliation among all peoples.

OUR FATHER God is my Father, He is always with me and all that is His is

mine. If I wish I will always be with Him and all that is mine will be His. In a way which I cannot explain, I see within me love’s freedom which is nothing else but God Himself. I see perfection, beauty, love, making me partaker in God in the degree in which I am love. On earth, in heaven. I see clearly how I am in the Father by the Word, His knowledge, and by the Holy Spirit, their manifestation. Within me, I see the living Trinity that produced me and preserves me. I see this presence within me even more palpably through the Eucharist, the Incarnate Word, the knowledge of Being and of Love, shown to the earth and becoming incarnate for it.All this has the splendour of a simplicity and a beauty which captivate and ravish my soul.

The truth is that we are called to Love, that He is always with us and that all that He has is ours. Everything is there.

I see God within me, in an irresistible way. I would like to make this presence grow ever greater and this depends on me. I will make every effort so that my daughters may have a large share in this paternal heritage. I will be the mother of souls, whose heavenly Father is my heavenly Father. I will do everything so that even the most miserable will understand

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and will return the love of their divine Father. I will remember that love can make itself understood only through love.

(NS 289, He Speaks… Nº 11, 29 Jan. 1888)

Are our souls failing to advance through love of self and things of this world? If it is so, let us turn to Jesus and see His gaze fixed upon us. He calls us to follow Him in order to strive after the perfection of our Heavenly Father. “You, therefore, are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” He desires our perfection. Let us, therefore, rise and follow Jesus, as St. Matthew did; let us share our Saviour’s poor and mortified life.

Divine Master, come and seek your straying sheep. It is by following you, the Way, the Truth and the Life that we shall find true happiness. I wish to live in your fold, and be guided by You.

(MD 574) In all things, the Evangelists and Apostles speak and act

without premeditation or anxiety, but according to holiness, truth and love.

The case was the same with St. Francis. Our Seraphic Father speaks to us as Jesus spoke, and bids us understand His words in their simple meaning. The wise and prudent of this world, who use a thousand human means, often illegitimate, to attain their ends and safeguard themselves, are generally disappointed. It is the meek, the humble, those who come to Jesus saying that they are weary and are burdened, but that they wish through Him to know the Father, who in the end do great things. We know the path that our Jesus has chosen, it is the way of the Passion, of abandonment to His Almighty Father. Those who follow this path of simplicity and humility, will bear their trials in peace. Strengthened and consoled, they will

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realise the truth of these words: “For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.”

“O Lord, who knows the hearts of all men, grant that I may be truly chosen to follow the Franciscan path, which is that of the Gospel, grant that I may glory in having been chosen to take my place among the simple, the little ones, the meek, and the humble, and that I may become worthy of such a holy vocation.

(MD 175)

In the depths of our beingthe Spirit of the Son continually cries

Abba, Father!Endlessly acting in and transforming us,

God invites us to enter into communion with him,and in him, with our brothers and sisters.

In welcoming his presenceour life becomes prayer.

(Const. 8)

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Yes, this is indeed a divine mystery. The Lamb Who brings peace, takes away the sins of the world. Let us adore Him in Mary’s womb. With her and like her, let us say to Him: Come.Lord Jesus, come and make peace between heaven and earth. I dare make You this request, because my vocation is to continue the mission of my Immaculate Mother and say unceasingly with You: Our Father Who art in heaven, Thy Kingdom come!

(MD 39)

Never love anything but the holy will of God. Whether at work or at rest, for a spouse of Christ all is well. God has no need of us to accomplish His work; let us then always allow Him to lead our boat, loving nothing more than to sleep abandoned within His arms.

(FMM-B.232)

There is a word of the little Office of the Sacred Heart that I already loved in my family. This attraction followed me in religion, and it is one of my preferred ejaculatory prayers: My heart is ready, O God of my heart, to do your holy will. Oh! If our heart were truly ready always to do the will of our heavenly Father, if we nourished ourselves on it like Jesus, how we would become saints! It is something so great that Jesus, in teaching us to pray, made this petition pass before any other: Our Father who are in heaven… may your will be done on earth as in heaven.

My child, savour this divine will, may it help you to triumph over all the little difficulties of life.

(PLG 25)

Live of the good pleasure of God… after the example of Jesus, try to nourish yourself on the will of the heavenly Father.

(FMM-B. 182)

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The soul who understands the secret of the annihilation of the Infant Jesus and Jesus in the Eucharist, knows at the same time the secret of how to despise the sterile agitations of the world. As a result, he possesses the science of peace. If we knew how to study and deepen our knowledge of the mysteries… we would be more of heaven than of earth. “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.” If we

imitate our Blessed, we shall be able to rest in God, and we shall receive the divine gift of peace. Peace is so precious that it was the preferred greeting of Jesus during His life to those to whom He particularly wished to do good. We shall possess peace in the measure that we despise and annihilate ourselves.

… you who know that the kingdom of God is within us and that exterior things cannot trouble this kingdom if the soul sees the Will of its Heavenly Father in everything that happens, obtain for us your humble abandon.

(MD 332)

Let us make our month of Mary with great fervour, so as to bring about the reign of God on earth. That will be the reign of truth and charity.

(JO 529 – April 1900)

Are we not the temples of the Holy Trinity when we are in the state of grace? We have but one thing to do: unite ourselves to the will of God dwelling within us, make our will one with

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His. But the spirit of lies seeks ever to deceive us. Knowing well that the kingdom of God is within us, he is perpetually busy making us seek it in things human, exterior, in the dreams of our imagination, our desires, our perpetual need of movement and instability, in our insatiable thirst for happiness and love. We are ever seeking outside, and in things human, this true happiness, this union with God that is within us, and that no one could take from us if we understood its being, its knowledge and its savour which correspond to the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, one and the same God. For my part, as I advance in life, I feel more and more this longing to enter into this interior Kingdom which we carry everywhere and which is independent of all transient things.

(JO 315 – 31 July 1897)

Have faith! Something in my heart tells me that God is advancing towards a great extension of His Kingdom.Let us use as an ejaculatory prayer, this dear phrase from the Pater: “Thy kingdom come!” And above all, may our fidelity, like Mary’s, summon that kingdom down to earth.

(JO 659 – 29 Jan. 1902)

… I was struck by a phrase of St. Paul which makes my way of understanding the things of God seem so right: “No unclean or covetous person, which is a serving of idols, shall inherit the kingdom of Jesus Christ and of God.” All attachment is, in fact, a theft from the God Whom alone we must adore and love without reserve.

We can see at once why St. Francis was so dear to God, so far in advance of others in the return to the state of man before original sin. It is because his motto was: “My God and my All” and no worship of self, of creatures, or of anything at all created, stole even the least corner of his heart from God.

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As you read this, you may well say,… as the people gathered about Our Lord said, “This is a hard saying, and who can hear it?” Then I shall reply to you in the words of the second meditation, the words used by the mother of St. Milethon to her son: “My daughter, suffer yet a little longer; Christ is at the door, He will help you.”

(JO 590 – 10 Mar. 1901)

I will bring about the reign of God, through Mary!… How I desired this reign… I would have liked to snatch it from the heart of God and of men, and yet I felt that I was so alone, so poor. What is to be done?… my soul cried. Suddenly, I was struck by the thought that Mary had done nothing by herself:

“Take the child and His mother”, the Angel had said…

“Take”, this word says so clearly that Mary had no will in the matter and that she abandoned herself. Then, Father, take and lead me wherever you wish so that the reign of God may be saved. I will not even ask where I am going.

(NS 9 – 28 Aug. 1882)

As for me… I console myself by repeating these last two words of Our Lord on the cross: “My Heavenly Father, into Thy Hands I commend this dear soul.” That is for him.

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The other, which is for myself, is: “All is consummated!” Yes, all is consummated on that side for your poor Mother. I would have been so happy to see him a priest, to receive from his hands the Most Holy Body of Our Lord. But such were not the intentions of God, and I adore them, acknowledging myself to be very unworthy. Perhaps, too, there was no greater sacrifice I could offer for the Church, for souls, the Order and the Institute.

Pray for him, and also for me, who am trying to unite myself with Mary at the foot of the cross, repeating with her: “All is consummated!”

(JO 500 – 5 Feb. 1900)

Above all others, we should realise that “the harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few”, and we should pray the Lord of the harvest to send labourers who will go forth “as lambs among wolves”.

Let us leave the Lord of the harvest perfectly free to do with each one of us what He sees to be best. In this abandonment to the Holy will of God we shall find the spirit of the Gospel and consequently of St. Francis; we shall understand the meaning of our missionary vocation; we shall obtain the courage of the Apostles and draw down upon ourselves the all-powerful blessing of God by means of which we can accomplish His work.

(MD 137)

Let us imitate Mary better. If our will were one with the Divine Will, our hearts would be tabernacles, worthy resting places for Jesus, our Spouse. The Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity would dwell in such sanctuaries of love.

(MD 228, cf. NS 101, He Speaks… Nº 210)

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… May this hymn of praise be always in your mouth; praise Him in all the extent of His power, let this power work on you and do not let your will oppose it. May our soul understand today the secret of the saints: to make use of all creatures to unite oneself to the Creator and abandon oneself in everything to His Divine Will.

(MD 288)

When we embraced our religious vocation, we said with all our hearts: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” And God answered: “Decline from evil and do good.” Have we always been faithful to this divine counsel? Cast a glance over the past. Alas! forgetting our promise, have we not declined from good to do evil? What ingratitude! What folly! Henceforth, … we wish to follow resolutely the straight and narrow path, seeking always the will of God, we will pray everyday and at every instant: “Lord, Thy will be done! May our love be ready to sacrifice every imperfection, to fulfil thy slightest wish.”

To be good missionaries, we must be disciples of the Heart of Jesus, of the Divine Lamb, immolated for us. Then we shall bring pagans and heretics to the faith, sinners to repentance, and enemies to peace and concord.

(MD 374)

O retirement of Nazareth, you ravish my soul with delight; there, O my Jesus, Thou art indeed “a hidden King, the God of Israel, our Saviour;” there Thou art victim for us, Thy whole

life said to Thy Father: “sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldst not; but a body Thou hast fitted to me: Holocaust for sin did not please Thee.

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Then said I: Behold I come: in the head of the Book is written of me: that I should do Thy Will, O God.”

Thy Divine Heart makes this word heard by all souls. “Blessed is he who hears me, and watches daily at my doors, and keeps the threshold of my house. Alleluia.” Our life is hidden with Christ in God. At the end of this meditation may we be able to say with truth “Our life is hidden with Christ in God. Alleluia.”

(MD 717)

I stopped at: “May your will, not mine, be done.” It seems to me that I am entering ever deeper into the Passion of Jesus. All that I read about my Seraphic Father and his spirit, helps me greatly. And now, I lovingly kiss the cross that is coming to pierce my heart. At each dart of the Passion, I want to say: “Thank you, for sending it, without asking if I want it.

(NS 115 – 10 Oct. 1883, He Speaks… Nº 65)

“My heart is ready, O God of my heart, to do Your holy will.” My God is beautiful, my God is great, my God is happy. What does it matter if His servant is wretched. Good pleasure of love, be free with me; I suffer but I am happy to be your victim.”

(NS 202 – 14 June 1885, He Speaks… Nº 101)

… For love to hold the place that is its due, it must be free to give and take away all that is not love. Therein I saw all the holiness of my seraphic Father, the knowledge of true happiness.

(NS 139 – 8 May 1891, He Speaks… Nº 42)

Just now, I have very serious questions to decide concerning departures. God knows I have no will of my own. I have but one desire: to know the will of God in order to accomplish it. It is not always easy. There is often so much for, and so much against, that even with the best good will, one does not always

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see very clearly. In those cases I like to address Our Lord in these words: “Lord, that I may see… Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” When one has prayed earnestly and done everything for the best, then one is much more at peace.

(JO 39 – 5 Feb. 1896) How I long to obtain for you my child, the grace to be as

faithful as she (Mary) was, from the cradle to her Assumption. Her great secret lay in possessing her soul in patience, that patience of which God gives us a glimpse when He says: “The meek shall possess the land.” We can only have that supernatural patience by conforming ourselves in everything to the holy Will of God.

Fathom that Will, and may the light which comes from the Holy Spirit show it to you so clearly that you cannot prevent yourself from practising it. It is certain that when God in His goodness gives us insight into any perfection or any fault whatsoever, we love the beautiful and detest the evil, even under the form of imperfections, so much that we cannot prevent ourselves from fleeing from the latter and fulfilling what is good and beautiful.

(JO 458 – 9 Sept. 1899)

Cf. In this booklet, p. 9: JO 315 – 31 July 1897

“My child, how I would like that your self will was destroyed by your own will. If you invested the energy you put in seeking your own will, into seeking the will of God, your pleasure in seeking the divine good pleasure, you would become a great saint. May God obtain for you this grace.

(FMM-F, 413)

You are right to want to serve God at all costs, it is for this alone that we are on earth, and the spouses of Jesus Christ, the franciscan missionaries of Mary should be the first to

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accomplish this pleasant duty for God whom they love. Do it then with all your strength, give yourselves more and more to Our Lord, and do not refuse anything that God’s divine will may be in all and everywhere!

(FMM-B,502)

To carry out the Father’s plan of lovefor the communion of all men and

women in him,Christ became obedient unto death,

even death on a cross.The Spirit carries us into the mystery

of his filial obedience.

In faith, like him we place our willin the Father’s will:

a gift of selfthat can go as far as total renunciation.

To it we bring Mary’s attitudeof complete disponibility before God.

We receive the calls of the Lordthrough various mediations;

among these, the Constitutions,superiors and the community

are particular to religious obedience.

Because we are called

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to live the same charism,we seek both individually and together

to know what is God’s will for us,listening to the Spirit at work in each one,so as to bring about communion and unity.

Through decisions takenwe adhere to God’s will

in a constant attitude of conversion.Const. 67- 70

GIVE US TODAY OUR DAILY BREAD

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Give me my daily bread, when you seem to abandon me, my daily bread of submission, patience and abandonment.

(NS 257 – 10 October 1886, He Speaks…Nº 71)

Eat every day,…the bread that God gives to your soul. When we say “Give us today our daily bread, we are asking especially for the food of our soul, as well as for that of our body. This bread God will never refuse us, and we must eat it when it is dry and bitter as well as when it is white and sweet, because God always gives us what is best for our souls, and because to desire this always is the great secret of holiness.

Conference at Marseilles – 18th April 1904cf. Biog. Ch. XXV, p.550

The best is to live day by day, always deeming best the daily bread, which God’s goodness prepares for us in the present.

(JO 296 – 23 June 1897)

The contemplation of Christwho, being rich, made himself poor

so that through his poverty he might make us rich,leads us to filial dependence on the Father

- the Fullness of Good and the source of all good –and to the disappropriation of all things for his sake.

Const. 52

Let me also beseech you, my beloved daughters, not to abuse the Holy Eucharist by receiving It without reparation for your faults. To offend God, our Superiors, our Sisters, and to approach the Holy Table without having humbly asked forgiveness, would be to bring Jesus Love into the midst of our self-love and want of charity; this would be exposing

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ourselves to making routine Communions and falling very quickly into lukewarmness and laxity.

Let it be an inviolable principle for Franciscan Missionaries of Mary that every fault must be repaired before receiving the God of Love and Charity, according to the Gospel counsel: “If therefore being about to present your offering at the altar… go first and be reconciled with your brother, then come and present your offering.” (Mt. 5: 23-24)

…avoid routine in frequent Communion; accustom yourselves to receive each time as if it were to be your last Communion. Always add also a particular intention, which may vary according to circumstances.

(CT/1, 23)

Let us understand the meaning of the Gospel (St. Matthew 5, 20-24) and may it inspire us with energetic resolutions. May we never keep anything in our hearts against our sisters or anyone else, still less against our Superiors. Even though we be the

injured one, what does it matter if we take the first step? In India, where the customs of the early Church are still kept on many points, it is always the younger who asks pardon of the elder, even though the latter should be in the wrong. The mother of the Foundress of the Institute never permitted that her children should sleep with the least resentment in their hearts.

They had first to be reconciled.

Being Franciscans, in other words, belonging to the Seraphic Order of Friars Minor, shall we dare to receive Holy Communion with resentment in our hearts or some offences on our conscience for which we have not asked pardon? Ah, never do so! With humility worthy of the Founder of the Minors and charity worthy of the Seraphic Saint Francis,

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“leave our offering before the altar and go first to be reconciled with our brother or sister, and then coming, offer our gift.” When receiving the Holy Eucharist, our poor hearts will then be able to enter into communion with the God of peace and charity.

(MD 835)

Truth and charity are recommended to us by the Epistle of the day. “Speak ye the truth every man with his neighbour… Let not the sun go down upon your anger.”

Let us profit from these two resplendent lights; may our entire religious life be stamped with truth, and may we never retire to rest, and still less approach the Holy Table, with charity tarnished.

(MD 851)

We too are very small; we need to see Jesus in order to know Him. Very often, our self-love presents us with some means to elevate us in order to have this knowledge of Jesus. Let us understand love, obedience. These will always tell us: Come down at once because today I mean to stay in your house, your soul.

Let us imitate Zaccheus, forget self for love, go down at once, strip ourselves, not only of half of our goods. That would be enough for a worldling, but insufficient for a spouse of Christ. Renounce every attachment, to all creatures, to ourselves, and make up for all the wrong we may have done. (MD 868)

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At the holy table, He gives Himself to everyone, to loving souls and to traitors. Even among the majority of those who are devoted to Him, how many sad differences painful to the Heart of Jesus!…

I do not know how this happened, but I received a special grace which has to do with all my relations with creatures, a light bidding me remain in communion with them no matter how bitter they may be, by uniting myself to Jesus in the Host who gives Himself in communion to all, even to Judas. I cannot describe it but I believe it is a practical and very special grace.

(NS 177 – He Speaks… 127)

…How easy it is to pardon, when one thinks of a sinner’s great need of pity. I pardon very easily all who have offended me. I am praying that Communion may have its full effects in the Church, especially in those who govern us, and in all priests. I believe that most people are free from bad will but Satan influences our nature in so many imperceptible ways. The result is that Communion is deprived of some of its luminous effects in souls and in the Church. If this fact were known how we would fear selfishness and uncharitableness with all their consequences.

(NS 365)

Sanctity is communion with God, but it cannot be realised if we do not have love in our hearts for all, even those who have made us suffer.

(Corr. 10 May 1877).

Let us love St. James who was of the same mind as Peter and took the part of the Gentiles. He was the second of the Apostles to whom Our Lord appeared after His Resurrection.

He was held in such high repute for his virtue that the people of Jerusalem called him “the Just”. We have proof of his great charity at the hour of his death when he raised his hands to Heaven and prayed for his executioners, repeating Our

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Redeemer’s cry: “Forgive them, O Lord, for they know not what they do.”

In order to be able to bear injuries, we must be mortified and must know how to suffer. Prayer and the spirit of sacrifice will prepare us for heroic charity.

(MD 298)

Dynamic and demanding,community commits us to

conversion of heart.In it we discover both our gifts

and our limitations.Through tensions,

failures and progress,we live

a mystery of death and resurrection,

experience forgivenessand learn from others

how to love Christ more.

Const.21

LISTENING TO TRADITION

It is said that on a certain occasion, someone asked Mary of the Passion, what was her spirituality. She replied without any hesitation:

“I have no other spirituality than that of the Our Father”.

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Mary of the Passion intimately relished the joy of being a child of God, thanks to the Spirit. She experienced what St. Paul expressed in his letter to the Romans:

« Everyone moved by the Spirit is a child of God. The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves

bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sonship and it makes us cry out ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that

we are children of God. And if we are children we are heirs as well: heirs of God and coheirs with Christ,

sharing his suffering so as to share his glory”.

(Rom 8: 14-17)

cf. NS 289, p. 2-3 of this booklet.

If anyone asks me what is my spirituality what will I reply?

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