Provincial Gratitude Day

Gratitude is an expression of the heart through which we acknowledge the value of something or someone who has touched our lives in a unique way, so that we never remain the same. Every year we set a day aside to thank God for each Sister of our Province and to value the worth of each other. Our hearts were bubbling with joy as we began our preparation for the Provincial Gratitude Day 2015 on the 1^st of January. The theme for this year was “REJOICE! DON BOSCO’S MONUMENT OF GRATITUDE, COME ALIVE, AS BREAD BROKEN AND SHARED”.  

We are called to be bread broken and shared to all those we meet in our daily apostolate. We creatively displayed this theme in the refectory by preparing loaves of bread using paper and coconut shells, each having the name of one member of the community. Through the six weeks of preparation each one of us wrote the virtues that we saw in each other on the bread containing each one’s name.

Don Bosco wanted us to be living monument of gratitude to our Blessed Mother. To highlight this aspect of the theme, we erected a monument around the statue of Our Lady, by placing bricks containing the names of the five sisters we prayed daily through the six weeks. At the top of the monument we placed the brick containing the name of our dear Mother Provincial.

We were enlightened by the sisters through the conference which was held twice in a week on the Church Document “Rejoice” and on the notes of the spirituality of Don Bosco given by Fr. Ian Doulton sdb.

As we journeyed through the preparation for this Provincial Gratitude Day, we tried to walk in the footsteps of Our Blessed Mother as her whole life was an example of true self-denial and bread broken and shared for others. We, her daughters have to be imitators of our Mother and be at the service of the young, especially the poor and abandoned and those at the peripheries, thus becoming bread broken for them. May our journey not end with the celebration of the Provincial Gratitude Day, but may we build a strong conviction to strive each day to make a new beginning, to be bread broken for others in the service of God and the whole of humanity.