60 and 50 years of total gift to our Good and Provident God, Canoas, Brazil

January 25, 2016

With the celebration held on January 2, 2016, we began the jubilee year of our Sisters: Maria Janete Tomazi, Maria Rute Warken, Maria Aloysia Stockmanns and Maria Natalina Muraro, who celebrate 60 years of Consecrated Religious Life and their Diamond Jubilee. Sisters Maria Leocadia Seimetz, Maria Petronilha A. de Gusmão, Isaura Mirian Benedetto, Maria Gloriema Warken, Maria Madalena Schmidt, Maria Terezinha T. Lopes, Maria Dolores Kassik and Evanise Maria Zucatti, Golden Jubilarians, are celebrating 50 years of Religious Consecration.

“The time in which we celebrate jubilee is a period of life crowned with blessings and graces. Blessings because our good God has confirmed you and strengthened you in your response to His call and has guided you until now.

Graces for the years of consecrated religious life in Notre Dame, 50 and 60 years lived in joy and fidelity. Because of this, let us give thanks together to our Good and Provident God who called you and consecrated you to the total gift of life and service, a life lived in love and with love as Sisters of Notre Dame. Together we thank our good God who placed in the heart of each one of you the gift of living the Notre Dame charism. Together, we are grateful for the 50 and 60 years of fidelity to the ever new call of the Lord.

The celebration of a jubilee year is always an opportunity to “Look at the past with gratitude”, an invitation to remember our own history. An opportunity to “Live the present with passion”, the today of life and of history, the present time which God gives us to live intensely, with faith, love, and prophetic joy. It is an opportunity to “Embrace the future with hope”, to thrust ourselves forward confidently in the footsteps of Jesus, to start over if necessary, to envision new projects, to glimpse more human horizons.

Thank you because you knew how to believe. Thank you for your fidelity to your vocation, for your apostolic zeal, for the fruitfulness of the mission. Thank you for your generosity and creativity in responding to the call of the Lord.

Until now, the Lord has led you, and He will certainly continue to lead you.

May Mary, our Mother and model in the daily surrender to the ever new call of the Lord, give us prophets who proclaim to the world the joy of the Gospel and the happiness of those who seek horizons full of hope.” (Words of our Provincial Superior, Sister Vania Maria Dalla Vecchia.)

Greetings and happiness to all, with our sisterly support and prayers.