No.8/9 September 2011
During this month we will be celebrating Mother Franziska’s charism in a unique and special way. On September 24 five of her spiritual daughters will be beatified in Sarajevo. The Drina Martyrs were kidnapped by partisans and marched through the winter forests of the Balkans. Along the way, they could have abandoned their religious calling and become simple camp followers serving the needs of these lawless bandits. They remained steadfast in their suffering and were finally imprisoned in a house near the river Drina. As the drunken men plotted to rape the sisters they escaped by leaping from an upper-floor window suffering great injury and eventually death by the daggers of the enraged militants.
In our Foundress’ day The prevailing thought was that people would live and die on the social level into which they were born. Simply through an unshakeable faith in the love of God for all his children, she, a peasant girl from a small village became friend of royalty, comfortable conversing with those at the pinnacle of the social strata. She was convinced that anyone could better their lot by education and hard work. She and her followers set out to serve the poor as a return to Jesus’ love for all humanity,
In our time the justified struggle for women’s rights has sometimes become a terrible perversion that degrades and abuses women in a measure hardly known in history. In God’s eyes women are by their nature sacred with a special mission to cooperate wth God in bringing forth new life and nurturing it for its glorious destiny. There is a deception that we see in our media where admiration of “beautiful people” is in reality a degradation and exploitation. Women are even told that they have the right to destroy the life within them. We pray and work that all women and girls become aware of their true dignity and surpassing beauty at each stage of life.
In our Foundress’ day The prevailing thought was that people would live and die on the social level into which they were born. Simply through an unshakeable faith in the love of God for all his children, she, a peasant girl from a small village became friend of royalty, comfortable conversing with those at the pinnacle of the social strata. She was convinced that anyone could better their lot by education and hard work. She and her followers set out to serve the poor as a return to Jesus’ love for all humanity,
In our time the justified struggle for women’s rights has sometimes become a terrible perversion that degrades and abuses women in a measure hardly known in history. In God’s eyes women are by their nature sacred with a special mission to cooperate wth God in bringing forth new life and nurturing it for its glorious destiny. There is a deception that we see in our media where admiration of “beautiful people” is in reality a degradation and exploitation. Women are even told that they have the right to destroy the life within them. We pray and work that all women and girls become aware of their true dignity and surpassing beauty at each stage of life.
