Feast of Blessed Maria Virgo

Feast of Blessed Maria Virgo
(Co-foundress of SSpS and SSpSAP)

Good Morning Sisters and Brothers … Let me first greet our beloved Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters, both the PINK Sisters and the BLUE Sisters…, HAPPY FEASTDAY…My dear Sisters please allow us to join you in this joyous celebration of the FEAST of your Founder…, BLESSED MARIA VIRGO.
In our reflections today, allow me then to dwell on two significant events in the life of Blessed Maria Virgo which I believe tell us very strongly what Jesus said in the Gospel today: “As the Father loves me, so I love you. Remain in my love.” (Jn 15:9)

FIRST, Blessed Maria Virgo is a person who is totally dependent on God. When Helena was accepted in 1882 by Saint Arnold to come and join the missionary community of the SVD she did not right away become a Missionary Sister. She waited for seven years while working as a maid in the SVD community without any sign of assurance that she’ll ever fulfill her desire of becoming a missionary. Only a person who has entrusted herself totally to God can bear the difficult feeling of uncertainty in waiting. I strongly believe that by her total dependence on God, the different reality she has to embrace must have become for her a test of her faithfulness and love of God. In the end, her long waiting did not end in vain; for it made her be wholeheartedly dedicated to the missionary community she began to build with Saint Arnold and others Sisters.

SECOND, Blessed Maria Virgo is a person fully open to the will of God. Some years after Saint Arnold had opened the contemplative branch of the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters; he asked Blessed Maria Virgo who was then the Superior General of the active branch if she is willing and ready to join the contemplative branch to settle the growing animosities between the two missionary communities. After some discernment, she realized in the founder’s request the will of God. Blessed Maria Virgo then exchanged the blue habit for the pink to start again as a novice of the contemplative missionary community. Such openness to the will of God on the part of Blessed Maria Virgo is truly admirable. Indeed, a person who truly loves God is also a person who is fully open to the will of God.
With these two significant events in the life of Blessed Maria Virgo, we can truly say that to remain in the love of God is to be totally dependent on God and to be fully open to the will of God. What sustained Blessed Maria Virgo during those difficult and challenging moments of her life is none other than her remaining in the love of God. For when God truly becomes part of ones life, then one can strongly say, “There is nothing impossible with God.”

Once again, I invite you to look at the life of Blessed Maria Virgo who by her example of total dependence and openness to God has shown us the basic attitude of a missionary. God is the source and agent of mission. By our calling we participate in the mission of God who made us worthy to share in the noble task of proclaiming the message of salvation to others. In our respective mode of life, may we then give ourselves readily and willingly to the mission of the church by witnessing to our faith and through our works of charity. Amen.