Blessed is she who comes in the name of the Lord

Waiting, seeking, anticipating are common traits of humankind. We all wait for something and someone. We, the Novitiate Community waited so long for the dawn of this day – 22 March 2015 - for the arrival of our Provincial. We joyfully welcomed Sr. Wilma de Souza, the light of the day, in a traditional Indian style. It was really great having Sr. Wilma with us! Her visit brought a hope of new life, the joy of togetherness and expectancy: an expectation of changing for the better.

The theme of our provincial gratitude day “BREAD BROKEN AND SHARED” was the focus for this visit too. The altar in chapel and the noticeboard were beautifully decorated; creative liturgy was in keeping with the theme. On the second day, to acknowledge her preciousness in our community, we staged a musical on Don Bosco. She enriched us with her inspiring goodnights and conferences and met each one of us personally and helped us to appreciate and strengthen our vocation.

On the last day during the Eucharistic celebration each novice carried an ingredient used to bake bread and at the end Sr. Wilma carried a loaf of bread symbolizing her life which she shared in the province generously for these past six years as provincial and we asked God to shower on her His abundant blessings as she continues her life’s journey. The Provincial visitation ended on 24^th March. We sing our song of thanks to God for her.

 

MEND YOUR INNER BROKENNESS

We are all children of a loving and merciful God. He loves us despite our brokenness and shortcomings and wants us to be happy at all times, so much so that “God sent His Only Son, not to condemn us but to save us” (Jn3:17). It is we who lose the way and end up with the idea that God doesn’t care or wants us to suffer. In our desperate search for happiness and peace we wander aimlessly in the wilderness not knowing that just one call to our DOCTOR JESUS will put everything right.

We the novices at SHTC were given the privileged opportunity to attend an inner healing retreat from 16^th to 20^th March, at Vinayalaya, Andheri, conducted by Fr. Franklin Lobo and his team.  Many lay people from all over the country attended this enriching retreat.

The whole of the retreat was focused on making us realize that we are all children of God and loved by Him and precious in His sight. We have the life of God dwelling within us and God is working wonders through our life. Through our life of sin and through all the hurts that we pile up deep in our hearts, we create a barrier so thick that if converted to matter, as St. Padre Pio would say, it would prevent sunlight from coming to the earth. In sin we reject the Trinity. But God our loving father waits for us to return to Him, acknowledging that we are sinners in need of a savior, knowing that we are just like the Prodigal Son in need of a father’s warm embrace.

The second most important aspect of the retreat was to be healed through the 5-step forgiveness therapy wherein we recalled all those who might have hurt us or whom we might have hurt, right from the moment of our conception, and through actual loud speaking to the person in the form of an empty chair, we received or gave forgiveness and asked Jesus to heal us in His Precious Blood. Through this therapy we were able to lighten the heavy burden we were carrying through our life journey knowingly or unknowingly.

To be able to free ourselves from the burden of hurts, we also had counseling and confession and many other prayer moments including a moment of inner healing adoration. Hurts piled up in the body often result in various ailments and pains. Through the Transactional Analysis (TA), we were made aware of the possible root causes of our ailments and aches, after which we had a session of physical healing, to experience the Divine Touch of the Wounded Healer.

The devil really lives and could come to us in different ways, when we allow other religious practices to take control of our life; this includes superstitious practices, prasad, poojas, freemason, and even yogic practices. For this reason, Fr. Franklin blessed salt, oil and water as mediums to be able to cast out any evil originating from such practices done ignorantly or knowingly.

We were given an extra privileged day in the Provincial House with Mr. Anthony Lobo and Mrs. Audrey, to help us with any doubts and further help in our prayer life.

Jesus owns us. It’s up to us to see how much we have surrendered ourselves to Him. When we are possessed by Jesus, nothing in this world can make us sad or discouraged or hurt.

We are ever grateful for this unique opportunity given to us to delve into ourselves and return fresh and healed from within. Though the retreat is over, the process has just begun. We endeavor to continue to turn to our Divine Healer, every time we are hurt in order to be reconciled and start anew. Above all we will forever cherish this experience as a moment of great acknowledgement of our belongingness to God as His loving child.

‘WOMAN’ - A Precious Gift of God

“International Women’s Day” is a day of great significance to every woman and it is a day especially set aside to analyze our thoughts and actions towards upholding the dignity of women. A home without a woman is incomplete and International women’s day is a great day to acknowledge and appreciate her undeniable contributions to our families and society and to be convinced that society will miss its important link and beauty without her.

To keep up Women’s Day, we the sisters and novices of SHTC organized a special celebration at Dominic Savio Church, Satpur. The meaningful Eucharist was celebrated by Fr. Bastin Thomas sdb and Fr. Robert Pen sdb, after which we had a very inspiring talk by Fr. Robert on the importance of women in our families and the society in which we live. He said that Jesus too gave priority to women in His life.  He appeared to Mary Magdalen after His resurrection as a proof to this fact. Likewise, He invited all women and men to respect every girl child in the family and treat every son and daughter equally.

After the talk Sr. Reshma Nune and the Novices conducted some games for women which they enjoyed to the full. This was followed by the prize distribution and a sumptuous meal.

Woman is the face of humankind, a fact we need to be reminded of, from time to time. We need to understand the real inner beauty of women rather than limit ourselves to gloating over her physical charms and treating her as someone who is under man.  We are chosen and created by God in His image and likeness and He gave equal respect to both men and women.

Let us be proud of our women who are the backbone of our society.   Let us try our best to empower them and uphold the dignity of all women in our society.  Let all harassment, rape, molestation and killing of women cease and a new world of justice and equality of women grow - let this be our prayer today and always.

Wishing all the women a very happy Women’s Day!  Be proud to be a woman.

Women's Day at Satpur

Women's Day at Satpur

Women's Day at Satpur

Women's Day at Satpur