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MONTLY MESSAGE N MONTLY MESSAGE n. 5 — 2019 Turin - Valdocco 24 May MARY URGES US TO BE THE JOY OF THE RISEN JESUS Dear friends, with great joy, gratitude and a spirit of adoration we celebrated the 150th anniversary of our Association's foundation on Holy Thursday, 18 April, in Turin and in many parts of the world. There is no better way to express what we experienced than with this prayer: THANK YOU, JESUS, FOR YOUR GIFT OF LOVE THANK YOU, JESUS, FOR YOUR PRESENCE AMONG US You willed to eat the Passover meal with us You gave us your Mother, Mary. You call us to wash each other's feet. You want Don Bosco and his spirit to be alive in our homes and in the new generations. You entrust us to the Holy Family of Nazareth. Thank you for the 150th anniversary of the Association of Mary Help of Christians: She is the woman who believes and a woman of the Eucharist. She is our Mother, Guide and Teacher. Let us live the Easter season, time of resurrection, time of Cenacle, with Mary Help of Christians and Mother of the Church. Our Lady wants us to be love, because Jesus died on the cross out of love. Jesus is the one who healed and still heals today. He is the one who died and rose again and who fills so many hearts today and gives new life to so many people who were dead. Mary invites us and urges us to rise from sin, from a mediocre life, from a dead faith and start a new life. To be members of ADMA is above all to be men and women of faith, men and women entrusted to Mary Help of Christians who testify by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Lord's resurrection: Jesus is alive! Jesus is risen! May Mary Help of Christians help us in the fight against Satan, who blows the wind of hatred, restlessness and disorder. Even today there are so many of our brothers and sisters who are persecuted and killed for Jesus, as happened on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka and as happens many missionaries. We need to witness our faith in Jesus and our experience of God. When we have met Jesus, we have something in us that we can pass on to others. We are proud and happy to be Christians, and not afraid or ashamed of being Christians, because we are risen in Christ. We too with our experience, with our life and our faith, must say: "I have seen him, I hear him, I believe". We must bear witness. Too many Christians today lack the strength to testify in a simple and open way. Sometimes we are ashamed, we also let ourselves be taken by the wind of fear, of indifference or resignation. This is why Our Lady tells us to pray and to love, because when we pray and love the devil can do nothing. As Don Bosco used to say: "Let us therefore avail of this month of hers, her novena, and her feast to entrust ourselves to the Blessed Virgin Help of Christians" Renato Valera, President Fr Pierluigi Cameroni SDB, Spiritual Animator RMG – ADMA's 150th: video-message of the Rector Major (ANS - Rome) - On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Associa- tion of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA), Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, Rector Major, sent his greetings and a message to ADMA mem- bers and to all the members of the Salesian Family, highlighting the value of the Eucharist and entrustment to the Help of Christians in Salesian spirituality. Significantly, the Rector Major sends this mes- sage from the Basilica of the Sacro Cuore of Rome, before the altar of the Help of Chris- tians, recalling how it was here that Don Bosco received confirmation of his mission car- ried out under the guidance and protection of Mary. Finally, he announced the publication of a letter on the occasion of this anniversary and spoke of the celebration of the VIII International Congress of Mary Help of Christians, to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 17 to 10 November this year. The following is the text of the message of the Rector Major: My dear brothers and sisters of the Salesian Family throughout the world, receive my affectionate greeting on this Palm Sunday. I greet you today because on Holy Thursday, in four days, the 150th an- niversary of the foundation of what we now call the "Association of Mary Help of Christians" will be celebrated which at the time was the Archconfraternity of Mary Help of Christians. In the foundation document, one reads a text by our beloved Father Don Bosco. "In the church dedicated to Mary Help of Christians in Turin and with the authorization of the Reverend Arch- bishop of Turin, the Association of devotees who intend to promote the glory of the divine Mother of the Sav- ior is canonically constituted, to merit your protection, in life and in particular at the moment of death. There are two means offered as special means: extend the devo- tion to the Blessed Virgin and the veneration to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament". We read it in the document of Catholic readings that communicate this message, because it is an occasion to say that what we are celebrating is something beauti- ful. Although what I have just read to you is the begin- ning of the letter that I am going to render public for the whole Salesian Family, today I just want you to get a greeting from the altar of this site, the altar of Mary Help of Christians in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. 2 The altar that I like to call "Don Bosco's tears and sobs", because in this place Don Bosco had that man- ifestation of what his life was, entirely accompanied, without doubt, by the Lord who has always guided him with the unique and special protection of the Mother. Because "She did everything", as Don Bosco used to say. My words of today are congratulations for these 150 important years for the whole Salesian world, for our Salesian Family, for the 800 legally constituted groups of our "ADMA" Association. And it is an invitation to fulfill what Don Bosco proposed: extend devotion to our Moth- er Mary Help of Christians, with the certainty that with the Eucharist and with Her, our Mother, we have these two great pillars that personally support our life, the Salesian Family and the Church. I take this opportunity to re- mind the whole Salesian Fami- ly that, under the guidance of the association of Mary Help of Christians, we shall cele- brate at the end of the year, in the last part, the World Marian Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Mary will be proposed as a model of faith for all of you, dear brothers and sisters. My affectionate greeting, my words of encouragement and my prayer before our Mother Help of Christians, for all of you, for our Congregations, Institutes, Families and Communities. See you soon! The video message of the Rector Major is available online on ANSChannel. The paper can be read at the following site: www.admadonbosco.org For every comunication you can contact the following email adress: [email protected] 3 Formation Programme 2018-2019: With Mary, the woman who believes 150th foundation of ADMA (18 April 2019) 8th International Congress of Mary Help of Christians (Argentina 7-10 November 2019) Fr Pierluigi Cameroni World spiritual animator 8. May: The Rosary – A Compendium of the whole Gospel 1. The Rosary, a gospel prayer Thus, for instance, the Gospel inspiration of the Rosary has appeared more clearly: the Rosary draws from the Gospel the presentation of the mysteries and its main formulas. As it moves from the angel's joyful greeting and the Virgin's pious assent, the Rosary takes its inspiration from the Gospel to suggest the attitude with which the faithful should recite it. In the harmonious succession of Hail Mary's the Ro- sary puts before us once more a fundamental mystery of the Gospel - the Incarnation of the Word, con- templated at the decisive moment of the Annunciation to Mary. The Rosary is thus a Gospel prayer, as pastors and scholars like to define it, more today perhaps than in the past. It has also been more easily seen how the orderly and gradual unfolding of the Rosary reflects the very way in which the Word of God, mercifully entering into human affairs, brought about the Redemption. The Rosary considers in harmonious succession the principal salvific events accomplished in Christ, from His virginal conception and the mysteries of His childhood to the culminating moments of the Passover - the blessed passion and the glorious resurrection - and to the effects of this on the infant Church on the day of Pentecost, and on the Virgin Mary when at the end of her earthly life she was assumed body and soul into her heavenly home. It has also been observed that the division of the mysteries of the Ro- sary into three parts not only adheres strictly to the chronological order of the facts but above all re- flects the plan of the original proclamation of the Faith and sets forth once more the mystery of Christ in the very way in which it is seen by Saint Paul in the celebrated "hymn" of the Letter to the Philippians - kenosis, death and exaltation (Phil. 2:6-11). As a Gospel prayer, centred on the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, the Rosary is therefore a prayer with a clearly Christological orientation.
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