Download link: Heritage

We see our origins with tenderness, feeling the infinite compassion of God who is expressed when He becomes Incarnate. We listen to the clamor of those who suffer illnesses, who live in scarcity. Compassion always responds. We contemplate the figure of Claude Marie Dubuis, who was always willing and generous

We feel the strength of his calling echoing in the hearts of three young women with simple and generous souls. They were driven by total love, a source of energy that would flow like a river, fertilizing drylands on its way.

And the years go by, and urgent needs are always present. They offer their life when they need to save orphans from the fire and to rescue helpless patients from a storm.

In Mexico, they are taken aback by a persecution and they face it with courage, faithful to the Mission. Peru and Zambia call them and that energy source continues to give life and freshness to everything on its way.

We see with gratitude the passing of the years. Thousands of faces are marked by the Word that is near them and welcomes children, young people and sick and infirm of every kind.

We see history decoding God’s passage, unraveling His fidelity in every circumstance and in every stage of the road.

This is a story knit with a thousand stories as a loom with a thousand colors that reflect the different gifts and also the suffering of the process of life. They surrender to the flow of life knowing that it is God’s process.

And as we see this story, we feel a mixture of feelings of gratitude, admiration, and confidence, because He, who has been so present in the past, is now fully present. The shadows and sufferings of the past are now irrelevant. What really matters is the only thing that is necessary, the treasure, the precious pearl, His presence here and now, as in every moment of history, in the depth of our inner self, and also inside the cosmos; “Have trust, it is I.”

He continues to permit the wonder of life to flow and your task is to collaborate with Him. You are the current of the river that fertilizes everything.

Today we celebrate the past with great gratitude, let us live the present with passion and let us see the future with hope.

For Reflection

(Share with one another some memory or story of your own)

Closing Prayer

Lord of life and Lord of history, Lord of the calling, of the joys and of the dry land paths where we have walked. I only want to see that You are looking at us.

We want to feel that you see us with your Incarnate Word Eyes and that we love you. We want to give ourselves to You today as we did 150 years ago. We are the love that wants to continue loving, we have believed in Love.

Our heart takes upon itself humanity’s miseries, poverty, pain, and illnesses, and it rests in You because everything in You is love and fidelity.

By S. María de Lourdes Urrutia.