Between 30 and 40 people attended the Eucharist in honor of the Consolata held in the house of our Community in North Brunswick. Fr. Paolo and Fr. Timothy presided over the celebration. The hymns where led by the Consolata Friends.
Attendants were invited to look at the witness given by newly beatified Sister Leonella, a Consolata Sister, and to listen to some excerpts from her letters about the role of Our Lady Consolata in missionary life. Sister Leonella sees the Consolata as the one who gives comfort, consolation through her son Jesus Christ.
On the occasion of the Consolata Day, in 1994, when she was the superior of the Consolata Sisters in Kenya, she wrote:
“We are called to be like Mary, a humble and respectful presence, sharing the life and the faith journey of men and women, and of the peoples… A consoling presence, close to those who suffer and to those who rejoice. We trust more in God than in human discretion, encouraged by the Spirit to take the Gospel where people spend their life, even in unsafe or difficult circumstances, up to the gift of one’s life”.
She asks herself: “How can we bring Consolation today?” her response being, precisely by looking at Mary welcoming the Son in her. Welcoming the Son in us and let him make of us sons and daughters of the Father by him. But let us listen to her own words:
“This means to accept that the Son be free in each one of us, free in me to forgive through me the one who offends me, free to share the bread of kindness, of understanding and of compassion, free to go along with me in the same journey and to make the same choices that the Father had him to do. Free to make me walk on the paths of patience, of sweetness and of humility that go through real humiliations… Free to love through me with a greater love, the endless love… the one which is stronger than hate and hell… in the truth, in deeds done each day and each moment. Therefore, we need that the Consolata beget in us this consoling Son so that we may recognize him in the face of humiliated and downtrodden people”.
On the Consolata Day, two years later, Sister Leonella wrote:
“Let us contemplate the mother who welcomes and begets in her womb for us the very consolation, the Son. The mother who, begetting her son, begets us too in him, [sons and] daughters in the Son, missionaries of the Father’s love, to bring his tenderness in today’s world, in this time when the whole humanity seems to sigh and bleed! Let us contemplate the Consolata as the one who offers her Son!
The Founder used to spend hours to contemplate the mother; he used to spend hours to adore the Son who became broken bread for us! And thus, through the very energy of our charism, we too become aware and capable of giving loving answers full of courage to today’s challenges so that humanity may re-discover the source of its identity and of its well-being”.
The evening was crowned by a nice meal. Food had been brought in by all who took part in the Celebration and the flavor reflected the different ethnicity of those who had provided it. The day was sunny and warm. Some ate outside, while the youngest of all, 12 year old Gabrielle, enjoyed feeding the birds on the house lawn!