(ANS \u2013 Turin) \u2013 The \u201cWomen\u2019s Saturday Evenings\u201d series opened in Turin on May 2, 2026, at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, marking the beginning of the Marian month in preparation for the feast day on May 24. As in previous years, on the three Saturdays leading up to the feast of Mary Help of Christians, three women are invited to the Basilica to share testimonies about Our Lady. This year, the reflections on \u201cMary, Mother of the Church\u201d are being led by three religious sisters\u2014chosen for the first time by Pope Francis and later confirmed by Pope Leo\u2014who hold positions of responsibility within the Vatican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTheir presence in the Basilica,\u201d explained Rector Fr. Michele Viviano at the opening of the May 2 evening, \u201callows us to experience the Church, even in its highest institutions, as close to and walking alongside the people of God. At the same time, through their gentle service, they help us better understand how Mary is Mother of the Church and how much today\u2019s society needs mothers and women who model themselves after Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of the initiative, each guest is introduced by a journalist from the Diocese of Turin and Susa media outlets, and the choirs that open and close the evenings with Marian hymns are also entirely female.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the first gathering, held before a packed basilica, the reflection was led by Sister Simona Brambilla, a Consolata Missionary and Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life\u2014the first woman to serve as Prefect of a Dicastery in the Roman Curia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sister Brambilla, who served as a missionary in Mozambique and completed two terms as Superior General of her religious institute\u2014founded by St. Joseph Allamano, founder of World Mission Day\u2014centered her moving testimony on the origins of \u201cOur Lady of the Rejected,\u201d patroness of distant Mongolia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Mongolia, where there are only 1,600 Catholics (0.5% of the population) gathered within the Apostolic Prefecture of Ulaanbaatar, led by Cardinal Giorgio Marengo\u2014a native of Turin, also a Consolata Missionary, and recently appointed by Pope Leo XIV as President of the Central Asian Bishops\u2019 Conference\u2014a non-Christian woman named Tsetsege discovered a wooden statue of the Madonna wrapped in cloth while searching through a garbage dump for food for her children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sisters of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Missionaries of Charity, later explained to her that the statue represented the Immaculate Virgin and taught the poor woman the Hail Mary. Though not yet Christian, she brought the statue to the Catholic community in her village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Sister Brambilla recounted, the Sisters later spoke to Cardinal Marengo about the \u201cMadonna of the garbage dump.\u201d Deeply moved by the story, he recognized it as a sign that Mary is \u201calways ready to meet us even in places of despair, rejection, suffering, and abandonment.\u201d Cardinal Marengo then decided to consecrate Mongolia to Mary in the Cathedral of Ulaanbaatar, where the statue had meanwhile been transferred and covered with a mantle sewn together from many small pieces of fabric sent by Christian communities throughout the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statue later became a symbol of Pope Francis\u2019 Apostolic Journey to Mongolia in August 2023, during which, Sister Brambilla continued, he also met Tsetsege, who had since converted to Catholicism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur Lady of the Rejected as a symbol of faith springing forth even in the harshest places\u201d was a story Sister Brambilla emphasized in response to numerous questions. It demonstrates how Mary, \u201cMother of the Church, most loving Mother, is the womb that gives birth to faith even in remote places such as a garbage dump. This teaches us that vocation is a gift from God and that from one small, poor woman can arise a sign of hope for an entire nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next events in the \u201cWomen\u2019s Saturday Evenings\u201d series will take place on Saturday, May 9, with Sister Raffaella Petrini of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, President of the Governorate of Vatican City State; and on Saturday, May 16, with Sister Yvonne Reungoat, Mother General Emerita of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and member of the Dicastery for Bishops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marina Lomunno<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (ANS \u2013 Turin) \u2013 The \u201cWomen\u2019s Saturday Evenings\u201d series opened in Turin on May 2, 2026, at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, marking the beginning of the Marian month in preparation for the feast day on May 24. As in previous years, on the three Saturdays leading up to the feast of Mary Help of Christians, three women are invited to the Basilica … Continuar leyendo \u201cWomen\u2019s Saturday Evenings\u201d at the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin: First Event Featuring Sister Brambilla, MC<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10336596,"featured_media":30630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[768897161,516714022],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-salesian-prayer","category-salesian-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salesianbulletin.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-05-08-Sisters-Basilica-feature.jpg?fit=1600%2C875&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59ePG-7XY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10336596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30631,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30626\/revisions\/30631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}