FRANZISKA NOTES SEPTEMBER 2012

As the sacred is driven more and more from public life it becomes all the more urgent for all believers to be authentic in their faith.  We know how quickly we must update our electronic appliances and what was new a few months ago is obsolete. Why would we think that our religious education from childhood or youth does not need to be polished and adapted to our fast changing culture and life circumstances.   We have at our disposal opportunities that would make even our dear Mother Foundress envious.   Information is all around us for the taking.  We have diocesan publications, free libraries, the internet which has websites and posts by dioceses, religious congregations, Catholic publishing companies and many private individuals.  The coming year of faith is a challenge to dioceses and parishes to provide programs to help people.   The upcoming Synod of Bishops will be responding to our Holy Father and his predecessor’s requests for a New Evangelization.  In the past this meant foreign missions, now, though they are not excluded, it is the previously Catholic cultures that must be re-evangelized.  We are invited to become closer to Jesus, to have an faith that is internalized in a loving relationship with the Blessed Trinity.  How excited would Mother Franziska be with this and how she would strive to motivate her sisters to be examples of persons in love with God, radiating a charity and loving care for every person they meet.   No one is so alone that they do not come into contact with other persons.  Perhaps God lets us meet a mailman or shopkeeper because we are to be the presence of God’s love for them.  No one is exempt from this great world mission.  We are called Daughters of Divine Charity which is translated in most of our languages as (Divine Love).  Our very title is our program and the opportunities to deepen this love in our own hearts and to radiate it in our sad and lonely, lost world are endless and everywhere.  We have a glorious task and a joyous and fulfilling future.