On February 5, 2023 we celebrated the World Day of Life with the theme “Death is never a solution. “God fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome, and there is not a destructive drug among them.” (Wis. 1:14)  The bishops’ hope is that this annual remembrance will “renew Catholics’ adherence to the ‘Gospel of life,’ their commitment to unmask the ‘culture of death,’ their ability to promote and support concrete actions in defense of life, thereby mobilizing ever greater energy and resources.”On February 5, 2023 we celebrated the World Day of Life with the theme “Death is never a solution. “God fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome, and there is not a destructive drug among them.” (Wis. 1:14)  The bishops’ hope is that this annual remembrance will “renew Catholics’ adherence to the ‘Gospel of life,’ their commitment to unmask the ‘culture of death,’ their ability to promote and support concrete actions in defense of life, thereby mobilizing ever greater energy and resources.”This is the goal of the “Help for Life Center” project dedicated to Sr. Serafina Cinque, ASC, which was inaugurated on March 14, 2023 at the “Cittadella Sanguis Christi” run by the Adorers of the Blood of Christ community located in Trani.  The work team, composed of Sr. Mimma Scalera, community animator and project coordinator, Sr. Anna Grazia Di Liddo and Sr. Lucia Volpi, social workers, Sr. Liana Campanelli, psychologist, Dr. Giuditta Cippone, psychotherapist and project supervisor, and Dr. Filomena Labriola, pedagogue, is committed to raising awareness of the issue of the protection of Life and to publicize the work done in the center on behalf of families, young couples and single women who for various reasons are in doubt or thinking about an abortion.It is also a coordination center that will collaborate with local agencies, professionals and people that a mother may need, providing free services with confidentiality. Specifically, the team is committed to accompanying women and families during pregnancy with individualized approaches in order to promote knowledge and attention on the experience of motherhood to the people in this area.  In the future it will offer the opportunity to participate and volunteer to those who share our values.It is a small sign of openness, a commitment for us and the city to women facing difficult pregnancies for various reasons, and it is a symbol of gratitude and acceptance of life in all its stages in the belief that “every life is worth the Blood of Christ!”

Sr Anna Grazia Di Liddo, ASC

“The tragedy of Cutro reminds us that the situation of migrants and refugees is the responsibility of everyone.”

On behalf of the International Union of General Superiors, I want to express our deep sorrow at what has been happening these days in Italy following the February 26 shipwreck of migrants near the beach town of Steccato di Cutro close to the town of Crotone.  Every day we witness terrible images that grieve us and arouse mixed emotions.  We feel outrage at seeing the number of victims growing inexorably, and we experience emotion and indignation at the great number of deaths of innocent men, women, and children, while the generosity of rescuers and the testimony of local people edifies and encourages us to always be on the side of the other.On behalf of the International Union of General Superiors, I want to express our deep sorrow at what has been happening these days in Italy following the February 26 shipwreck of migrants near the beach town of Steccato di Cutro close to the town of Crotone.  Every day we witness terrible images that grieve us and arouse mixed emotions.  We feel outrage at seeing the number of victims growing inexorably, and we experience emotion and indignation at the great number of deaths of innocent men, women, and children, while the generosity of rescuers and the testimony of local people edifies and encourages us to always be on the side of the other.Along with the controversy over what could have gone differently, we question the value of existence, hospitality and solidarity, while Pope Francis continues to call everyone to fraternity as the core value of true humanity.  We are bombarded with opinions while sea rescues of boats at risk continue with hundreds of men and women trying to reach the shores of Italy.  But the crammed first-reception centers are incapable of providing an adequate response to an unprecedented migration phenomenon.  The data we are given says that between January and February arrivals have doubled, and to stem the growing number, policies stategic are ...... amidst controversy and searches for responsibility. In this social framework, the International Union of General Superiors wants to express its regret at what is happening, because we are aware that we are talking about people with faces and stories ... of our brothers and sisters who in searching for a better tomorrow and hoping for a better future, risk their lives at sea to do so.  In this social framework, the International Union of General Superiors wants to express its regret at what is happening, because we are aware that we are talking about people with faces and stories ... of our brothers and sisters who in searching for a better tomorrow and hoping for a better future, risk their lives at sea to do so.  The death that takes place in the waters of the Mediterranean grieves us greatly.  The victims who lost their lives at sea and, along with them saw their human rights drowned and their hope destroyed, cannot leave us dumbstruck.  We have already, on other occasions, expended words.  Now the time has come.  Their cry cannot leave us indifferent any longer.  We want to make their despair heard and be a voice for their pain and their wounded, demeaned and shattered dignity.Humanitarian dramas of this magnitude cannot continue to be tolerated. Laws and economic policies that disregard human rights and condemn people to misery can no longer be tolerated. This tragedy reminds us that the situation of migrants and refugees is everyone’s responsibility. We ask national and European governmental institutions, to “choose life” (cf. Deut. 30:19) by pointing out responsible and humane ways of support and aid, agreeing on humanitarian corridors, promoting equity as a principle of social justice, the basis of peace and friendship among peoples.We cannot forget that sacred history is steeped in exoduses and welcomes.  As we ask the Lord for a compassionate heart, capable of genuine pity and contrition for what has happened once again because of human responsibility. we implore God to give us the strength to understand how to intervene, and not to become addicted to these images, but to stand on the side of the weak and recognize the value of the other.  Life is precious; it is God’s gift and it is worth the Blood of Christ always and in all ways.  We are asked for the commitment and safekeeping of a precious good for all.

Sr. Nadia Coppa, ASC - Presidente UISG
Rome, March 11, 2023

Dear Sisters,

Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit be yours!

                  We have begun a new year and we hope that this fast-moving time finds us ready to embrace it as a favorable time for our sanctification and for the transformation of all humanity.

          As a Congregation, we are in the preparation stage for our General Assembly and we have many opportunities for reflection and delving into our call to be a prophetic presence in the Church and in the world.  We recognize the call to “begin afresh from Acuto” to find the fire of our origins again, rediscovering the power of the charismatic gift we have received that is needed to deal with the inevitable changes while maintaining the foundations of the faith that do not change, but can be moved and pitched in ever new lands so as to accompany the people journeying in history.” (Working Document for the Continental Stage, n.26).

          The upcoming celebratory events laid out along our path are also a help for renewing the joy of God’s gift within us.  We gratefully enter into the year of preparation for the 190^th anniversary of our foundation (March 4, 2024) and we joyfully celebrate the 20th anniversary of the canonization of St. Maria De Mattias (May 18, 2023).  These are important milestones for renewing our commitment to the Lord as we grow in our vocation as adorer-missionaries of the Precious Blood.

          As we celebrate the sacred history of our community, we want to experience these events as one big opportunity allowing us to draw light from the holiness of Maria De Mattias and savor anew the richness of our charismatic identity by renewing our sense of belonging to a living body in continuous transformation. 

          In the dynamics of the Church, we are embracing the call to live our synodal vocation more intensely and to recognize how St. Maria De Mattias was a prophetic woman opening important perspectives in this direction.  She strove to share the mission with all those she served and included every person along her path, allowing herself be evangelized by every encounter and experience, widening the space in her tent and letting each person encounter the Crucified Love.

          “My daughter, let us happily work hard for Jesus Christ and bring souls to his side.  They cost him his Blood.  I recommend charity and patience.  Every person is dear to Jesus’ heart.”  In these words we can gather the spiritual legacy left to us by St. Maria De Mattias. 

          She discovered that, first and foremost, faith is an attitude of the heart capable of arousing an unwavering and tireless self-giving that becomes unconditional openness to all and an opportunity for change in every concrete situation.  In this light, we understand how for St. Maria De Mattias there was no better place to find God and help to look for him in the heart of every woman and man of her time.  In listening to the human heart, St. Maria De Mattias made room for God and set out with everyone, recognizing and valuing each one. 

Her attention in recognizing the concern for what is human as essential is moving.  In the school of the incarnation she had learned to read history and to live in it with confidence.  With an intimate sense of an everyday life inhabited by God, St. Maria De Mattias lived in newness and knew how to make her time a place of encounter and renewed openness to life. 

            She was capable of seeing and taking on what matters by living simply and in constant openness to the newness woven in daily life of closeness and sharing.

            Through her profound commitment to God and remaining steadfast in the love of her Lord, she sees the beauty of a life lived in freedom, where Jesus is her only treasure, her Supreme Good, and the way for loving all without possessing anything. 

            Through her experience, each of us is encouraged to grow in the awareness that we can encounter God every day and following Jesus is a choice that is renewed in daily life and makes life harmonious and unified.  For St. Maria De Mattias, encountering Jesus crucified is the source for continuing the journey and the strength to remain steadfast in faithfulness to the little things that make up daily life.  As consecrated women, we too fulfill our vocation by cultivating the art of relationships.  It is in living the “mysticism of encounter”, listening to others and searching together for the way to follow that we can shape our identity and a synodal lifestyle. 

          For St. Maria De Mattias, what truly matters is cultivating new relationships, feeling and living as sisters, creating an authentic life together and being at the service of each other through listening and dialogue, creating a climate conducive to sharing and co-responsibility and the participation of everyone.  Each person is holy ground, possibility and treasure because she is paid for at a dear price, with the Blood of Christ.  According to each person’s vocation, we are all called and needed in the task of evangelization in a synodal style. 

            In this way, the water in the jugs of our daily lives is transformed into the wine of joy and newness and missionary life takes on the flavor and fullness so needed at this time. (Pope Francis).

         

• In light of St. Maria De Mattias’ charismatic experience,

what choices can I make to cultivate the art of relationship?

          Let us allow the Holy Spirit, who enflamed St. Maria De Mattias’ heart,  to gently transform us and make us capable of making room for all so that each person may receive life in abundance. 

            St. Maria De Mattias, accompany us as we continue to let ourselves be renewed by your shining example.

In line with our program, the Vivat Spain group organized a training day on October 22 to raise awareness and knowledge of the mission of Vivat International and Vivat Spain.In line with our program, the Vivat Spain group organized a training day on October 22 to raise awareness and knowledge of the mission of Vivat International and Vivat Spain.It was a day spent with Andrzej Owca, CSSp, who is currently working at the Geneva headquarters, and listening to the videoconference talk by Carlos Ferrada SVD who spoke to us from Austria.The first topic, what Vivat International is and its mission, was developed by Carlos in a video conference, and the participants were also able to ask questions on critical issues such as the credibility of the United Nations and the sense of participating in these spheres that also have their bureaucratic and functional limitations.  Nevertheless, Carlos motivated and encouraged us to learn about and use this space where we need to be and from where we can slowly achieve long-term goals that can change and improve the lives of the most vulnerable.Next, the Vivat Spain group presented how Vivat Spain was established in 2015 and, since then, has sought to promote collaboration between our institutions and involvement in the field of immigration.Our Vivat group has been a venue for sharing and encouraging each other in working with immigrants and refugees in concrete activities of welcoming and denouncing abuses.  It has also allowed us to go beyond with participation in the 2020 Universal Periodic Review (UPR), presenting a critical account of the inhumane and violent treatment of people in CIEs (Centros de Internamiento para Extranjeros or detention centers for foreigners awaiting deportation in Spain).  The group also affirmed its willingness to continue to denounce the violation of human rights and to present it in the spaces offered, especially in Geneva, through an “oral statement” and reporting for the 2025 UPR.The second topic was covered by Andrzej, who shared in his introduction some information showing the historical context and development of what we commonly define as human rights. The definition of these rights has been improved and expanded, not to go beyond the 1948 Declaration as a starting point, and since then there have been several declarations at the regional level in various parts of the world that have also offered other perspectives.From civil rights we have expanded to economic, social and cultural rights; also to rights from different cultural and religious perspectives, from Africa, the East, etc., and to the rights of various special categories such as children and adolescents, or international treaties against torture and deprivation of liberty, against disappearances.He also looked how we can understand our action starting from the concepts of CHARITY and JUSTICE.There is no doubt that we are called to charity, which leads us to care for the fallen, to redress the effects of injustice and bad policies.  But if we stop to reflect, we must also look at the causes, and this is where the justice aspect comes in.  This allows us to have broad goals so that injustice is not repeated and people have a better quality of life.Working for justice requires other avenues, sometimes long ones and with tools that are not enticing: knowing the laws, collecting documentation, talking to politicians and administrators at different levels.  Justice also needs a critical part of prophetic denunciation in collaboration with people and organizations, perhaps having other motivations, but working for building a better world.At the end of the day we celebrated the Eucharist asking the God of Life, God the Father and Mother, to continue to encourage us to live charity, assisting the needy without neglecting justice and the task of denouncing structures of sin and helping to change them so that all “have life and life in abundance.”

A Page of ASC History: 75th Anniversary of ASC presence in Amazonas

When talking about Amazonia, we are speaking about a broad region including many states in Brazil: the state of Amazonas whose capital is Manaus; the state of Para with Belem as capital; the state of Acre with Rio Branco as capital; the state of Amapa with its capital in Macapa; the state of Roraima with its capital in Boa Vista and the state of Rondonia, with its capital in Porto Velho.  When talking about Amazonia, we are speaking about a broad region including many states in Brazil: the state of Amazonas whose capital is Manaus; the state of Para with Belem as capital; the state of Acre with Rio Branco as capital; the state of Amapa with its capital in Macapa; the state of Roraima with its capital in Boa Vista and the state of Rondonia, with its capital in Porto Velho.  The first Adorers from the Province of Schaan arrived in Para in 1936 and served for 17 years in the cities of Porto de Moz and Altamira, from which they left in March 1953 when the first Brazilian Adorers arrived to take their places.  The mission of the Adorers in Brazil began in 1936 in the Prelature of the Xingu.  But with the passing of time the few Sisters became sick and during WWII lost contact with their motherhouse.The ASC Mission began in Amazonas in 1947 when 4 pioneer ASC Missionaries arrived from the province of Wichita, in the United States upon invitation from the Redemptorist Fathers.  The Redemptorists needed Sisters as catechists, teachers in schools and helping the sick.  There were many vocations among the young women of their parish.  The Fathers wanted to welcome congregations who would accept young Brazilian vocations.  This was the request that Father John McCormick sent to Sister Aloysia Barthelme, Provincial of Wichita in August, 1946.  In response to that request and to the letter received from Msgr. Joao da Mata Andrade do Amaral, Bishop of Manaus, the Provincial of Wichita and her Council decided to send two Sisters to visit the Redemptorist Missions along the Amazon River.  Sr. Julitta Elsen went to Altamira, where the Adorers of the Schaan Province were located to encourage them and communicate to them that they would certainly open a mission in Amazonia.  From Altamira, in Para, the two Sisters went to Manaus, also visiting the other Redemptorist missions of Coari, Codajas and Manacapuru.  They returned to the U. S. in November 1946, taking with them the first Brazilian candidate, Noemi Cinque, the future Venerable Serafina, for her formation to religious life as a postulant and novice in Wichita, Kansas.  Chosen from among the many volunteers for the mission in Amazonas, Brazil were Sr. Georgiana Heimermann and her sister Sr. Marciana Heimermann, as well as Sisters Julitta Elsen and Jane Frances Baalmann (Sr. Joana Francisca, as she was known in Brazil).  On September 26, 1947 Pope Pius XII warmly approved the idea of the Mission in Amazonia and gave his apostolic blessing on the missionary work of the Adorers during the General Chapter of the Sisters in Rome, where the Provincial of Wichita and Sister Julitta Elsen were present as delegates. The four missionaries appointed for the Brazilian Mission received their mission crosses in Wichita on November 23, 1947 from the hands of the Bishop Mark Carroll, Bishop of Wichita.  Father Fagan, Redemptorist Provincial of St. Louis, gave a touching homily.  A Pan American flight took the four pioneers to Manaus on November 30, 1947 at 11:00a.m.  Father Joao McCormick, Sister Cornelio and many parishioners were at the airport to welcome the Sisters and went to the Bishop’s house where the official welcome was given.  The following day they visited the governor of the state, Loepoldo Amorim da Silva Neves, and then the North American Consulate in addition to visiting churches, schools and hospitals.  During the two weeks spent in Manaus, they studied Portuguese with great commitment, helped by their teachers Lucinda and Lili Azevedo, who hosted them in their home.  At midnight on December 21 the Sisters, accompanied by Father Jose Elworthy, left on the industrial motor boat from Manaus to Coari, where they arrived at 4:00p.m. on Saturday, December 25.  Father Joao Maria Kreuzer had gathered the whole town, which was very small, to welcome the first Sisters that would work in Coari.  On the Sunday after Christmas, December 26, Father Jose Elworthy, the pastor, celebrated a high Mass of thanksgiving for the arrival of the Sisters in Coari, in Amazonas.  Thus, the Mission of the Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ was born in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.