With the Whole Congregation, all of us at the Motherhouse are joyfully celebrating the 175th anniversary of our Congregation’s foundation. To begin our celebration, we had a beautiful International Mass in our Motherhouse Chapel on Sunday, January 19, 2025.
The chapel was decorated with a picture of our foundress and co-foundress, Sister Maria Aloysia, and Sister Maria Ignatia, surrounded by the flags of the 19 countries where our sisters are currently based. Our chaplain, Fr Walter Vinci, MI, celebrated Mass with us. In his homily, he said, “This Sunday’s Gospel (The Wedding at Cana: Jn 2,1-11) is the backdrop to your jubilee, which you begin this month. Look, in this Gospel, there is gratitude and hope. Nothing is enough if the divine wine is missing from your life. It is not enough to give thanks for these 175 years of foundation; we must hope that God will never be missing from our lives. ‘Fill your jars with water’. This is the hope of finding and having empty jars and filling them with water.”
During the Mass, we shared special intercessions, praying for the people and sisters in all our units. We concluded the Mass with a song composed by the Sisters of the General Delegation House in Nairobi, Kenya, ‘Happy Jubilee!’
The singing and dancing continued into our beautifully decorated dining room, prepared by Sr. Maria Elke. Sister Maria Magdaline, from Vietnam, prepared her first Italian lasagna and roasted chicken for us. Sister Maria Lory Inês baked a delicious cake and decorated it with the number ‘175’ written in cherries. Many other hands added to this festive atmosphere.
Before we began our meals, Sister Patricia Marie, our local superior of the Motherhouse, proposed a special toast: “May our hopes be high, our gratitude deep, and our Sisterhood surround us now and always!” We also sang a German song as our meal prayer. The celebrations at the Motherhouse are always international and represent our global sisterhood.
As we go through this year, may our sisters and collaborators worldwide fill our empty jars with life-giving water and love, and may the good God transform them into rich and fragrant wine.
It was truly a wonderful way to begin the celebration of our 175th year as a congregation.
by Dreamhost