CCM Pilgrimage Calcutta 2018
Extract from the words that SR. PREMA MC, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, gave to the group of priests of the CCM in our pilgrimage to Calcutta…
4 th September 2018
Welcome fathers to Mother house from many countries around the world. Nowadays people are in need of being smiled at, but how the world has become so isolated. From the face of the person whom we see, we are either welcomed in or shut out.
Mother wanted our sisters to smile, the brothers to smile, the fathers to smile, because she used to say you will never know how much “good” a simple smile can do, and one smile generates another smile and becomes a chain of smiles that can handle everything. The spirit which Mother gave us is of trusting and surrender into God alone. Last year I was going around different countries, meeting the sisters. It was very painful to see how systematically faith was stolen from people’s hearts, taken away from people’s hearts. The presence of the sisters have made difference; it has made a big difference in the countries; for example, Cuba would not be the same today without the sisters being present there, Ethiopia would not be the same without the sisters being there, Albania would not be the same without the sisters having been present there, and at their side the priest.
Why was Mother so fussy about the fathers and the priests? Because they are Jesus, you are Jesus, you are the one who gives us Jesus, and the world today is longing to have the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. You are the ones making them blessed with the Eucharist and the Sacraments. For our sisters, the more pure and the more we are attached to God, the more the Grace of God can flow through us to others, making us channels of this Grace. There are so fewer priests, that they are really working, and you have so much to do with the activities and tasks at which you are asked to be present. Look at Mother who was always so active till late in the night, and even on the plane flights always active. What I experienced with Mother was that union with Jesus which was so natural to her.
I will really be grateful to you for serving the sisters in whatever place you are, to help the sisters to take great care of their interior life, because Mother from the beginning was convinced that the exterior must grow from the power of the interior, the union of God.
We are supposed to be the light of Jesus and the fire of his love and you fathers help us; you keep us close to Jesus, you teach us how to pray and how to be in real relationship with Jesus, to serve in his spirit, to recognize his voice. All these days Mother is very close to us in sharing the same charism, the same vocation, as a dedication to the poorest of the poor, and maybe your poorest of the poor are the sisters, and you have to take care of them. Take care of me.
THANK YOU
