V.J.E.
Praised be Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament!
Happy Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord!
Today, as we celebrate the announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would be the Mother of Jesus, we also celebrate the foundation anniversary of our Institute. Our Mother Foundress, Venerable Maria del Refugio Aguilar y Torres, founded our Institute with the desire to spread the love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament through the Christian education of children and youth. The desire of our Mother Foundress was that all may come to know Jesus’s redemptive love and presence in their lives through the Eucharist. As Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, we are called to be transformed by Jesus’ love and become Eucharist for all we encounter each day by God’s grace.
In light of this celebration, our Sisters in the Our Lady of Mercy Community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana would like to share with you some reflections on our Mother Foundress and the significance of our charism. These reflections are based on excerpts from a document about our Mother Foundress by Xavier Pikaza that highlights some of the foundational motivations of Ven. Maria del Refugio and the first Sisters of our Institute. We pray that you may also be inspired by the witness of our Mother Foundress and her zeal to bring souls to the love of Jesus in the Eucharist
Reflections from the Sisters of the Our Lady of Mercy Community
“It was the very love of Jesus which was uniting them! It was the Eucharist itself which was producing their communion! This was Mother Refugio’s secret. She never wanted to put herself at the center, nor did she impose any rule or order of obedience. The center of the house, the heart of the family, was Jesus in the Sacrament. As the sisters used to say: ‘I am giving myself up to the Institute of Jesus in the Eucharist, under whose protection and guidance I hope to gather copious fruit.’” – Xavier Pikaza
Insight from Mother Rosario, HMSS: “Dear Mother Maria del Refugio, on reflecting on your life, I thank and admire you for listening to God’s invitation to found our Institute. Thank you for refusing to place yourself at the center of the community and allowing Christ to become the true heart of this, our family of Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Knowing of your humility, you invite me to examine who or what is at the center of my life and who should be at the center of our communities.
I know you remained hidden, but when responsibility called you into action, you responded with clarity and firmness. You are a strong example of how a leader should be. You teach me balance, and challenge me to use discernment to know when to step back and remain hidden and listen quietly, and when to step forward and speak with courage, and allow God’s will to be manifested through this, His humble instrument that I am, but always guided by love.
Mother Maria del Refugio, intercede for us, that by your example and inspiration, we return to our first love and live a radical life where Jesus is the center of our hearts and lives. Mama Mary, guide me to live a simple and faithful life like Jesus.
Mother Maria del Refugio, I love you, intercede for us!”
Insight from Sr. Cecilia, HMSS: “As I read this quote about Mother Foundress, I immediately think of the times when we gather together, especially for Chapter, and I am with new Sisters; even sometimes Sisters from Mexico. Normally, when you meet a new person, there is some awkwardness. This has never been the case when I have met another of our Sisters. It is so easy because we are all united together by Jesus. We have that common ground, that common love, immediately and we live to fulfill the same charism. This makes it easy to form relationships with other Sisters, and then we pray together using the same prayers that our Sisters pray throughout the world, and we are instantly united. Then comes the fun of spreading Jesus’ love to each other and out to the whole world.”
“Such is the Institute, such is the house: it is the home of Christ in the Eucharist. It is not the property of anybody, nor is it just a place of work. It is a home where Jesus lives, offering his warm presence to each and all of the sisters. This experience of living in a house of Jesus, of living under the same roof as the Eucharist, constitutes the basis of Mother Refugio’s work and gives it its meaning. Some things may change; nearly all customs undergo change or modernization; the ways of understanding or approaching social work have become different with time. But the essence of our experience is that of Christ living with us in our house. Moreover, Christ stands at the center, he is the reason for the unity, he is the ideal and the inspiration of all those who live in the house or near it. Without that union with Christ, a union which is reflected specifically in the very way in which communal life should be understood, the Eucharistic Apostolate of Mother Refugio and the sisters who came after her would lose its meaning.” – Xavier Pikaza
Insight from Sr. Yve Marie, HMSS: “This quote is very powerful and a great examination of conscience. Am I making this house into a home? Am I functioning solely from nature or am I striving to nurture and cultivate an environment of deep hospitality and comfort? It is beyond a privilege and honor to live under the same roof as the Savior of the world! This gift is the foundation of and motivation for all my actions inside and outside the convent. This gift of being in close proximity to such a wonderful Lord is why I have the grace of perseverance. This gift of having uninterrupted and unhindered access to the Divine Bridegroom is the greatest joy of my life.”
Insight from Sr. Joseph Marie, HMSS: “When I think about our life as Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, I think the essence of what we are called to is to become homes for Jesus and to help others become new homes in themselves for Him as well. To know that Jesus in the Eucharist is in me, with me, and loving me shapes my life every day. Without Him and His presence, nothing else makes sense.”
“This was at the core of Mother Refugio’s experience: God’s Eucharistic presence has to be understood as the source of life for man, becoming a principle of evangelization which can and must be extended in a special way towards children. Unquestionably the gospel is a mystery of love and a mission which lends itself to all aspects and levels of Christian life. Well, Mother Refugio and her first companions believed that at the basis of communal love and of any Christian conversion lay the mystery of the Eucharist. This is the principle on which her Institute was founded.”- Xavier Pikaza
Insight from Sr. Beatriz Fidelis, HMSS: “To be a Mercedarian Sister of the Blessed Sacrament is to be caught up in the visible and the invisible; when we consider communal love and Christian conversion, we consider what is both visible and invisible. The interior stirrings of the heart, the desire for virtue, the longing for truth, the hunger to live life fully with the Lord and with each other; these are invisible but made visible in real encounters and in concrete choices. The mystery of the Eucharist is the mystery of the visible and the invisible, where we substantially encounter the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, God’s presence in a mysterious and real way. For that reason, we turn to our Eucharistic Lord to speak to our hearts, order our desires, fill our longings, and give us a new understanding of life, so that we can truly love one another.”
“How can we not recall with gratitude to the Spirit the many different forms of consecrated life which he has raised up throughout history and which still exist inthe Church today? They can be compared to a plant with many branches which sinks its roots into the Gospel and brings forth abundant fruit in every season of the Church’s life. What an extraordinary richness! I myself, at the conclusion of the Synod, felt the need to stress this permanent element in the history of the Church: the host of founders and foundresses, of holy men and women who chose Christ by radically following the Gospel and by serving their brothers and sisters, especially the poor and the outcast. Such service is itself a sign of how the consecrated life manifests the organic unity of the commandment of love, in the inseparable link between love of God and love of neighbor.” -Vita Consecrata, 5