We Welcome Mary at SHTC-Nashik

She stays with us in a special way during our Marian month and so today we inaugurated the Marian month with a meaningful prayer moment and the Holy Eucharist.  In keeping with the outcome of GC XXIII and the conclusion of the Bicentenary of Don Bosco’s birth we as a community have taken for our Marian month the theme “With Mary and Don Bosco be Beacons of Hope and Joy”. To make sure that this theme becomes a daily reality we chose certain weekly practices such as to grow in positive outlook, to be encouraging and supportive, to grow in compassion and to appreciate the good in the other.

During the Eucharist the Priest reminded us that Marian devotion should lead us to Jesus and all those who reach Mary will surely reach Jesus since she takes them to Him.

Every year has its own uniqueness when concerning Marian Month and so too this year. There are a number of meaningful and exciting activities planned in advance so as to be beacons of hope and joy in a best possible way. To begin with, the beautiful decorations and display of the theme, invites us to build deep relationship with Mary. Besides the usual Rosary animation and the good nights on Mary we also desire to animate daily evening recreations based on Mary.

The novices who are divided into three groups have been kept busy especially during this month by some interesting competitions such as Marian singing, Marian dance, Acting - Mary in the life of Don Bosco and Marian symposium.

During this month all want to imitate Mary in their own typical way and so a day has been allotted to each one to be living Mary in disguise and by the end of the day the community will have the opportunity to point out who Mary was for the day. 

Mary teaches us valuable lessons through her life and so we have Faith Sharing on the Marian passages so as to imitate Mary in a concrete way. The films on Mary also inspire us to get closer to Mary and so there will be two films watched during this month.

Mary always thought of the other and went in haste to reach out in service.  The theme of Marian month invites us to be beacons of hope and joy and so the community has taken up an outreach activity that is to visit the Assumption sisters, Thiloli, who run a boarding for 500 girls. Finally we desire to end the month with a meaningful Marian Nite.

All are enthusiastic and ready to be beacons of hope and joy. We pray that Mary our Mother may walk with us and guide us in this our journey towards her Son Jesus.

Blessed Maria Romero Meneses

A very happy feast of Blessed Maria Romero Meneses to you people of good will, desiring to go out to the peripheries of the world like Maria to touch the hearts of the poor and the downtrodden. Sr. Maria Romero is a successful daughter of Mary Help of Christians because she incarnates in an original and concrete way the dream of Don Bosco and Mary Mazzarello through her continuous work for the poor and the needy. She is a woman of our times, born in Nicaragua in a well-to-do family and spent her life as a daughter of Mary Help of Christians in Costa Rica amidst the poorest.

Captivated by God, she dedicated herself to Him whole-heartedly, serving Him in the poorest, with a sense of responsibility and honesty. Her artistic nature, expressed itself above all in the music, the piano and the violin. She was also equally adept at accounts and constructions. Unforeseen events and obstacles put her courage to the test. A woman of the beatitudes, Sr. Maria made herself poor and one with the poor. She trained a group of youngsters to be ‘little missionaries’ to carry forward the mission of evangelization.

Praised be the Lord

for our dear Sr. Maria

the little mystic called ‘nica-tica’

cheerful yet reserved, from Granada of Nicaragua

where the little ‘nica’ was born

and contemplative – active woman of Costa Rica

from where ‘tica’ did great things.

Praised be the Lord

for our Sr. Maria

because for her you were the SUN who illumined the night

persistently seeking you in HOLINESS

in humility, pleasing you;

discovering new ways of fraternity

in carrying out little and great works

praising you with ‘ home –made’ PSALMS

and whispering secret words of love.

“Peter, you are rock and on this rock I shall build my Church”

On 29^th June 2015 we celebrated the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul the two strong pillars of the Church. St. Peter was the first successor of Jesus Christ and so, on this day we remember Pope Francis, who at present represents Jesus Christ on this Earth. Pope Francis is the 266^th successor of St.  Peter. He is known as the Pope of surprises, he believes in reaching out to the poor and marginalized. He is also called as Pope of the people.

Don Bosco our father and founder had great devotion to the Supreme Pontiff. He believed in the fact that pope represents Jesus Christ. Don Bosco encouraged his sons and daughters to have great love and devotion to the Holy Father. He often recommended his boys to pray for him as he holds a great responsibility in our Catholic Church.

Keeping the Salesian tradition in mind, we the novices of SHTC expressed our love and devotion to our Holy Father by celebrating His feast on a small scale. We began our day in a pleasant atmosphere as the Salesian group led us into prayerful mood with their beautiful animation. During the Eucharistic celebration in a special manner we prayed for our Holy Father and for all his intentions. We remembered him all through the day in our short visits to the Blessed Sacrament, rosary, etc.

In the evening to honour our Holy Father we had a short program which consisted of an address to the Pope, a poem composed on the life of Pope Francis and a skit depicting His life. Through the program we came to know more about our holy father which helped us to understand his role in the church. It was a great day which we will always remember.

Evviva il Papa!

Long live the Pope!

St. Maria Goretti

PRAYER - Feast of St. Maria Goretti

St. Maria Goretti, we pray that you may intercede for us to be chaste.

Help us to fight against our pornographic culture.

Help us to radiate true love for all and never to indulge in any fantasies,

words or acts manifesting lust. We pray for the healing of all victims of rape

and for forgiveness and new life in Christ for all who have forced others

into sexual sin.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

God’s LOVE made manifest in Christ

Pope Francis in one of his talks said, “Jesus wants to love you for what you are, even in your frailty and weakness, so that moved by His love you may be renewed”. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a reflection of God’s love for each of us. Jesus Himself asked for this feast to be celebrated through His visions to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Our Founders, Don Bosco and Mary Mazzarello, too had a special devotion to the Sacred Heart, in whose love they united themselves to the whole Salesian Family-both near and far. Don Bosco desired that every formation house be consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus because it is the priceless virtues of Love, Generosity, Sacrifice, Renunciations, Meekness, Humility that characterize the heart of Jesus that should be imitated by all religious.

The Sacred Heart Training Centre, Nashik - the Novitiate of the Mumbai Province of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians celebrated this feast with much fervor, joy, love and dedication. From the 3^rd of June, a fervent novena was kept up in preparation for the feast during which the different highlighting characters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were focused upon to imitate, like His mercy and compassion, His love, generosity, humility, meekness, etc. There were also those characters which helped us dwell on the depth of God’s love made manifest in Jesus’ Sacred Heart which is the source of all goodness, fount of love, a heart which always consoles and comforts and from whom one gets all the riches of grace if we do approach Him.

On the 11^th of June, the eve of the great solemnity, a beautiful vigil service helped us enter into the atmosphere of the warmth of love with which the Sacred Heart of Jesus burns for us. We offered ourselves at the feet of Jesus, coming around Him as a family to allow Him to take charge of our lives and mold us into His likeness with the virtues of His most Holy Heart.

At the dawn of 12^th June, one could feel a great sense of excitement in the powerhouse of prayer of MM Mumbai as the Sisters and Novices of SHTC, Nashik woke up joyfully to celebrate the House feast. There was also added reason to celebrate today, it also being the birthday of our dear Sr. Sanjina Moteghar. There was a wonderfully animated morning prayer to begin with, thanking God for His Love and for the gift of Sr. Sanjina to our beloved community.

At 11.30 am we had a solemn Eucharistic meal celebrated at the hands of Rev. Fr. Kenneth Pereira sdb and concelebrated by the many priests of the neighbouring Salesian houses. Our Sisters of Maria Vihar community joined in the celebration. Fr. Kenneth in his homily stressed on how we keep for ourselves different images of God; be it superman, super barter, policeman, judge, etc. we tend to look on Jesus as someone who prevents God’s wrath from falling on us. But in actual Jesus is a living manifestation of God’s love for us. The Heart of Jesus is a mirror reflecting God’s love for each of us, the love with which He gave up His only Son to die for our salvation. God longs to have us all for Himself, to love us and care for us as His beloveds. Fr. Kenneth then concluded saying that we should try to make our own, the virtues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and seek to go deep down into the mystery of God’s love manifest in the Heart of Jesus, burning with love for each of us. 

During the day we had a festal meal with the neighboring communities to add to our joy. The joy of togetherness also helped us experience the love of God in a better way manifest through each other in a true family Spirit. In the evening, the novices put up a short cultural program in keeping with the theme “Jesus still Loves You!” during which the sacrificing love of a mother was compared to the unconditional and unceasing love of Jesus for each of us. The day ended with a sense of gratitude for the love of God we experience through each other and which led each of us here in SHTC to follow and imitate the Sacred Heart of His only Divine Son Jesus Christ.

  

Jesus’ Unconditional Love

FMA Novitiate Sacred Heart Training Centre, Nashik (India)

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus came into existence after the divine revelation seen by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.  But it was only in 1765 that the feast of Sacred Heart was instituted by Pope Clement the XIII. When Jesus appeared to St. Margret He told her to spread devotion to the Most Sacred Heart among all the people so that they would experience His great love for them.

Heart is an important organ of the human body which symbolizes LOVE. Love can be differentiated into many categories. For example, love of the parents for their children, children’s love for their parents, love for ones own friend, love between husband and wife, etc. But have you ever seen or experienced love which Jesus has for each one of us?  His love is so great that He did not hesitate to give His life for us on the cross.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the symbol and eloquent image of the eternal love with which God loved the world so as to give His only son for our salvation.  Sacred Heart is also the image of Jesus’ infinite love which moves us to love Him in return. Jesus Christ’s open heart is receptacle of divine generosity pouring on us showers of mercy and grace.  His heart has not and will never cease to burn with love for us. We can say it is a place of rest for those who have united their hearts with His and a place of refuge for those who approach Him with a remorse heart.

Jesus is constantly inviting you and me to consecrate ourselves to His Most Sacred Heart as an act of offering and binding ourselves to Him. So let us not delay in giving Him our hearts and not be far from experiencing His love for us.

MARY, The apple of God’s eye

May is the month dedicated to Mary our Heavenly Mother. It is the month during which the Church witnesses great devotion and love for our Blessed Mother. For the Salesian Family, this month is much dearer to the heart as we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary Help of Christians, Don Bosco’s Madonna. Mary the help of Christians is the Help and intercessor of all God’s people and the closest link between us and Jesus.

During the novena, great stress was laid everyday on the role of Mary as Daughter of God. We, her Daughters are called each day to entrust ourselves to Mary to help us grow in our relationship with one another and to deepen our daughterly relationship with the Father. Our devotion to Mary is not to be only one of routine prayers, but a true imitation of Mary in her virtues. Through our love for Mary we must be able to draw to her loving embrace the youth of today who are in need of someone who is ever ready to listen to them and with whom they can associate their daily life situations, not as someone far away, but as someone who has lived through the challenges of her times with complete trust in God.

Our identity of Daughters of Mary Help of Christians contains our mission- to be true mirror images of Mary to the world. We have to proudly live up to our daughterhood to Mary Most Holy through which we gain equal status with Jesus who is her Son.

The month of May ends with the beautiful feast of the Visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth. As the visit of the Mother of God brought joy to the prophet in the womb and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on St. Elizabeth, may Mother Mary visit our lives and bring with her the joy of bearing witness to Christ in our daily lives and to be Spirit filled persons, zealously proclaiming the Good News to the world. May we in turn live up to our identity and bear fruitful witness to God’s love to all, as Mary did, throughout our life.