(ANS – Rome) – On August 5, 2025, the anniversary of the foundation of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother General, Sr. Chiara Cazzuola, reaches all the FMA through a video message from Rome, where the Youth Jubilee has just taken place.
“We celebrate August 5th as the date of birth of our Institute 153 years ago, in the Jubilee of Hope and a few months before the canonization of Sister Maria Troncatti, the first Daughter of Mary Help of Christians who rises to the honors of the altars after Mother Mazzarello. We also recall another event that characterizes this Jubilee and that is the closing, a month ago, of the diocesan inquiry into Mother Rosetta Marchese, VII successor of Mother Mazzarello.
In this particular context, we cannot ignore the strong call to holiness that the Lord renews for us. Celebrating the past, in fact, does not mean for us to return only ’emotionally’ to the distant 5 August 1872. In this sense, it would be enough to reread Don Bosco’s homily to the first newly professed Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (cf. Cronistoria I, pg. 150), to realize the depth of faith and trust that animated them.
The example of the spikenard to which Don Bosco refers to invite his Daughters to a radical, joyful, and all-encompassing following of Jesus, should awaken in our hearts the ardent desire to live only for Him, “for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.”
We give thanks to the Father for the gift of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello to the Church, to young people, to the Salesian Family, and to the whole world.
If I think of the visits made in recent years to the various Provinces, I can only give thanks to the Holy Spirit for having aroused with the direct intervention of Mary, our Institute of which today we too are a part, with joy and gratitude.
In any continental and geographical area, the Institute is a living reality at the service of the Church, but above all of that part of humanity that Don Bosco claimed to be the most precious, youth, a term that for us embraces the totality of the person in their growth process: from childhood to adolescence.”
“In these days, participating in the various moments of the Jubilee of young people, I was able to experience their openness to the encounter with God and others, their thirst for spirituality, their sincere search for the meaning of life. They expect us to be happy women, generators of life and hope. They need us to continue to indicate a path and guide their search for the good with the strength of the Gospel and in the style of Salesian spirituality, always current and close to the sensitivity of young people today.
We have no time to waste; either we are what we must be in this time, or we will not be significant and witnesses of the light we carry within us with the gift of being Salesian consecrated women.
August 5th calls us to renew with determination the choice of Da mihi animas cetera tolle and I entrust them to you.
Therefore, courage and happy celebration, in communion with all the Sisters, Educating Communities, and young people scattered throughout the world.“
Source: CGFMAnet.org