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Ave Maria!

"After 40 Years in the Same Shrine"

Without fear of exaggeration we can define that Saturday of August 1, 2010 as a day of grace not only for our Institute, but for the edification of the whole Church which was enriched, in only a few hours, with novices and professed sisters. At about 11:00 a.m., in the new chapel of the Mother House in Frigento, Rev. Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli celebrated the Holy Mass, in which the candidates for the religious investiture participated in their “wedding gowns”. At the end of the Holy Mass the postulants went to the Shrine of our Lady of Good Counsel where at around 12:30p.m. the ceremony of the religious investiture according to the ancient form of the Roman Seraphic Rite took place.

In the brief introduction Fr. Stefano especially recommended the sublime virtue of humility, which is certainly the best disposition in receiving the great grace of the religious investiture. After having asked to be admitted to the Institute, the postulants were received, one by one, on the steps of the altar where, at the feet of the Founder, they left their civil attire and were dressed again with the seraphic habit. Then each one of them received a new name to signify the new life and the particular mission assigned to each of them by God.

During lunch a feast was celebrated for the new novices, but the shower of graces continued till afternoon with the religious profession of 7 novices, celebrated also according to the “Vetus Ordo”. Accompanied by our Mother General and the Novice Mistress “ad partem Evangelii”, every novice, with her hands in the hands of the Founder (who received the vows), recited the formula of the Profession “ad gloriam Dei omnipotentis, ed ad Immaculatæ Virginis Mariæ honorem”.

On the following day, about 40 sisters renewed their religious profession, always in the same blessed Shrine where exactly 40 years ago our Father Founders arrived in order to begin their experience of the “Casa Mariana”. Magnificat anima mea Dominum!