Poverty

Let us look at the poverty of Bethlehem, at the humiliation of the Word of the Father and then confront our own pretensions, our own haughtiness: what a contrast!

Discouragement

Let us never become discouraged over troubles, never let ourselves be dominaed by discouragement. Life is brief. What is even a hundred years compared to eternity? We must completely detach ourselves from this earth in which we are exiles.

Let us recommend ourselves to the Blessed Mother that she may keep her holy hand upon our head always. Let us make this pact with Her: that she may come to us when we are on our deathbed and carry us up into Heaven.

Blessed Virgin--Our Mother

The Blessed Virgin is our Mother. Depend on the Blessed Virgin for everything, as Jesus did. Imitate her in her conformity to the will of God. Bow your head and say: "God's will be done." At times something unexpected comes up, but let us always be docile, prompt in doing the will of God.

Queen of Apostles

O Queen of Apostles, pray for us!

Pray for us,

your daughters who entrust ourselves entirely to you.

Pray for us, so that we may never offend Jesus,

but may love Him with all our hearts.

Beneath your mantle, O Mother,

we your daughters take refuge daily.

Make us worthy of your maternal gaze,

make us all yours.

All that we have is yours.

Teach us,

guide us,

sustain us,

defend us from every danger as you have done till now.

And after this exile,

show us Jesus,

the blessed fruit of your womb.

Our Blessed Mother

Do everything with our Blessed Mother, for her, with her, through her. With our Mama, everything is done more willingly, with Mama everything is easier. Our Blessed Mother makes even difficult things easy. Many things are little in themselves, but they are difficult for us. Why? Because we have little virtue yet. Then it is that our Blessed Mother helps us, takes us by the hand, and even carries us, if necessary.

Spirit of Faith

Live a life of faith, live with our mind on God.

The more we distrust in ourselves and trust in God, the more graces we will have. We must await everything from Him, from His goodness.

Always look upward, to Heaven! That is our real homeland, our very own place, prepared for us by the Divine Master. To it we must aspire, there we must arrive at any cost whatsoever--and not any place whatsoever, but aspire to a high place, our place.

Hence we must never become discouraged. Always distrust ourselves but always trust in God.

Charity

Never think evil. Some can see nothing but evil around them. This is a sign of an evil mind.

With regard to thinking evil of others, let us think of what we have heard so often, that is, if we wish to receive favourable sentence at God's judgement, if we want to avoid this judgement completely--we must never judge others, never think evil. Jesus himself, in fact, said it. No matter what we see or hear, we must never judge or think evil, because we do not know how that person whom we wish to judge stands in the eyes of God; we do not know what her intentions are.

St. Francis de Sales says: "If you cannot excuse the action, at least excuse the intention."

Forget past faults.

Fervour

Work a complete change in our lives: from tepidity to fervour, from a life which is not totally of God to one which is. Fervour is fervour of spirit. Activity alone is not fervour.

If we are not fervent, what are we doing? It is easy to fall into tepidity.

When our heart is full of love of God, we will of necessity pass this love on to others because it is a fire which must spread. But if we do not possess love of God, how can we communicate it to others?

Let us not dream of doing big things (martyrdom, for example). Let us rather take advantage of the little opportunities we have to offer something to the Lord. Those little sacrifices of the day--let us offer them all to Him. This will be our blood shed drop by drop for God. Let us not scatter the treasures we have, the precious peals of which we can dispose. Let us not lose time, which is so precious. Time is worth as much as God is worth!

Love for People

Be concerned about glory of God, about becoming good, about doing good to people, and all the rest will be given to you by God.

Every day we have our crosses to bear: some will have large ones and some will have smaller ones, but we all have them. First of all we ourselves are a cross: let us accept it well and offer it to God, forgetting ourselves to remember more the souls to be saved. Are we or are we not Apostles?

Heaven

Let us always look up to Heaven, not downwards to the earth, because here below we will always find something that is not right. Let us look up, at the clear blue sky... let us push ourselves ever upward. All the way up to Heaven! That must be our joy, and the thought of Heaven must fill us with the courage to overcom the difficulties.

Always look to Heaven.

Always desire and seek Heaven with all our strength.

Faith

Let us pray with faith. The words of God are infallible. It is we who fall short. God does not fail. God is truth. Therefore, the promises He has made are certain. He will keep them. Let us go to Him with confidence.

Charity

Let us bear with one another. We do not know how burdensome we are to others and we think that it is only others who are burdensome to us, who are annoying, and with whom we must bear. We are burdensome to one another because we all have our defects.

Will of God

Always do the will of God well, in imitation of Jesus, who came into this world to do the will of the Father. We are in the world and in this particular place, to do the will of God. If we always do the will of God well and willingly, He will do ours and will listen to our prayers.

God is near us, within us, in our midst, and we are near Him. God is always present to us. If our thought were fixed on God, if we were to think more of His presence, how beautiful our life would be! God is good. Who outdoes Him in goodness? Let us often think of the goodness of God rather than of His justice. If we were to think often of the goodness of God, we would find it very easy to love and serve Him.

Serenity

At times we complain of the environment, but fail to realize that we create our environment. Let each one say to herself: "I want to do my bit to render the environment in which I live serene and good. Therefore I will seek to be serene and not lose my patience over trifles." Thus we will help make the environment in which we find ourselves a serene one.

Of course there are things which displeases us, but it would be just too bad if we were to let every little thing, little offenses, various troubles, every unfavourable opinion, and the defects of others get the best of us!

It is certain that as long as we shall be upon this earth we will always find something that is not right. Perfection is not of this world. God sends us good chances to gain merits: let us take advantage of them!

Humility

Teniamoci al nostro posto che è l'ultimo, nell'umiltà; amiamo le umiliazioni di qualunque genere esse siano, da qualsiasi parte esse vengano. Siamo ignoranti, siamo le più piccole, le ultime: siamone ben persuase.

Let us stay at our place which is the last, in humility; let us love humiliations of whatever kind and from wherever they come. We are ignorant, the smallest, the last: let us be well convinced of this.

Union with God

Seek union with God, the fulfillment of His divine will. Special methods are not necessary: love of God is needed, and then we will see how divine providence is always most gentle and most delicate. Every day and in every action, it covers what is necessary to make us saints and to make satisfaction for the punishment due our sins. We on our part must be on guard to let ourselves be guided at every step, and to abandon ourselves entirely to God.

Death Anniversary

Today is the death anniversary of our dearest co-foundress, Mother Tecla Merlo. Here's a music video in italian done by our genius sister.



Feel free to give your ratings. Sorry it is not in English, hope to do the translation one of this day.

Spirit of Faith

Live a life of faith, live with our mind on God.

The more we distrust in ourselves and trust in God, the more graces we will have. We must await everything from Him, from His goodness.

Always look upward, to Heaven! That is our real homeland, our very own place, prepared for us by the Divine Master. To it we must aspire, there we must arrive at any cost whatsoever--and not any place whatsoever, but aspire to a high place, our place.

Hence we must never become discouraged. Always distrust ourselves but always trust in God.