XII Edition December
2000
Heart to heart
"Do not be afraid of becoming the Saints and
Apostles of the Third Millennium!"
EDITORIAL Mother Adela Galindo,
Foundress, SCTJM
© Only for
personal use
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
We are daily confronted with the battle for our hearts….We face the
battle for the heart of the family, the heart of society… the heart
of nations, even of continents. With great sorrow, we see how so
many hearts in our Continent are not heeding the important call we
received from the Holy Spirit in 1992, when John Paul II called
America: “the Continent of Hope…the Continent of Life.” The same
words were said to us during his visit to Mexico in 1999. I believe
the words of the Servant of God urgently called us to stand firm in
our convictions and to recognize that the American Continent plays
an important role in the battles of our times. Our role can only be
understood if we gratefully assume the gift we have been granted,
and that is: we are a Marian Continent, we have a clear Marian
history, we have a Marian mission and we have been entrusted with a
Marian gift. Our Continent has been imprinted with Mary’s maternal
face and heart: to us has been granted the image of Our Lady of
Guadalupe. This is not only a sublime gift, it also brings with it
great responsibility: we are called to be witnesses to love and to
life, to build a new civilization by embracing our Marian charism
with courage. We need to dispose ourselves to be instruments of
God’s love in our historic moment.
In the Fullness of Time
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his
Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). The fullness of time
which Saint Paul refers to in this passage relates to our human
history. God, by becoming man, entered time and transformed our
history, converted time into time of salvation. This history
contains all the joys and sorrows, all the victories and defeats of
the world and of humanity - from Creation to the end of the world.
Brothers and Sisters, history also involves each one of us today. We
too are part of this history which the God-made-man has transformed
and continues to transform into salvation history. We are,
therefore, protagonists of our present, we are the actual builders
of this history; and, just like the Blessed Mother, we should all
say: “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
God wants to write through our hearts, through our lives and fiats
the history of salvation, a history of love, of grace, of life, of
communion and of holiness. This is, therefore, our time to make
history. I thus present to you the same words which our John Paul II
addressed to us at the end of the Jubilee Year: “Do not be afraid
of becoming the Saints and Apostles of the Third Millennium!"
Just as God intervened in history 2000 years ago by coming to the
world through Mary’s maternal womb, today He wants to form in the
maternal Heart of Mary, the Saints and Apostles who will cooperate -
by opening their hearts to the power of His grace - to become the
architects of history for this new Millennium. This is why during
his visit to Mexico in 1999, John Paul II entrusted and consecrated
us to the Maternal care of our Lady of Guadalupe: “I have come to
the Marian Heart of America to entrust and offer the future of this
continent and of the world to the Most Holy Virgin, Mother of Christ
and of the Church.” He is telling us that it is precisely from
the maternal womb of the Blessed Mother that the Apostles of the New
Evangelization, the witnesses of love and the builders of this New
Civilization are born - for the heart of the Church and for the
heart of the world.
Similar to the missionaries who came to the New World to transmit
the faith, today, all of us - as the protagonists of this historic
time, at the beginning of the Third Millennium - should ask
ourselves: What are the challenges which we confront? I believe that
the greatest challenge we face today is the building of a new
civilization and a culture, which generally seems to be in ruins
because it has separated itself from God, its center. As a
consequence of this separation, our culture has turned into a
culture of selfishness and death. Today’s world seems to forget the
significant value of the human person, because it has forgotten the
reason for its existence: the love of God.
The task of building a New Civilization goes hand-in-hand with an
even greater task - that of committing ourselves in the New
Evangelization: to the re-christianization of the world. “The new
evangelization will be the seed of hope for the new Millennium”
(John Paul II).
In 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe came to Mexico, and to all of
America, as the Star of the First Evangelization. She came as star
and as protagonist. It will not be different today in this New
Evangelization. She, the Mother of Christ, the bearer par excellence
of Christ to the world, will be the star and the protagonist of this
new civilization of love and life. This mission will require men and
women who are willing to dispose themselves to allow love to
triumph, beginning with their own hearts, in order to become
witnesses of love, life, mercy and truth - to a civilization in
decadence and ruin with regards to faith and morals.” This
generation has the mission to take the Gospel to the humanity of the
future. You are the witnesses of Christ in the new Millennium. Be
aware of this reality and respond with prompt fidelity to this
urgent call. The Church is counting on you” (John Paul II, November
21, 2000).
Our Lady of Guadalupe entrusted to the most humble of her sons -
Saint Juan Diego, a particular task, which he found too big for his
poverty. Today, perhaps we all feel the same as he, since before us
we have an arduous mountain to climb: the promotion of a
civilization of love and life in a world which has allowed itself to
be overcome by selfishness and death. However, let us be
strengthened by recalling what the Angel said to the Virgin Mary at
the Annunciation: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke
1:37). She believed in the Word revealed to her and she opened
herself to the power of that Word. In her the Word became Flesh, the
promise was fulfilled. From that moment on, the Blessed Mother
became the most eloquent witness of the power of God. When our
current tasks seem impossible to fulfill and the goals way too
difficult to reach, she - the woman clothed with the sun, crowned
with twelve stars and about to give birth - appears on our horizon
in order to remind us that God became man to intervene in history,
in order to transform it into a history of salvation.
Let us ask our Lady of Guadalupe that each one of us may know how to
cooperate with her maternal mission to build a new civilization, a
new home, a new heart for our world. May she teach us to be
witnesses to love by proclaiming to the world the primacy of love
and the primacy of life. Let us not be afraid to be the saints and
apostles of the New Millennium. Let us entrust ourselves into the
maternal heart of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
“I have come to place at the foot of the Virgin of Guadalupe,
star of the first and new Evangelization, the future of the Church
and all of her evangelizing mission. The Church of America is the
Church of Hope, that is why I entrust to the Mother of God, Mother
of Life, the future of the evangelization” ( John Paul II,
1999).
In the love of the Pierced Hearts,
Mother Adela, SCTJM
Foundress
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