Consecrated to God for ever… as Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart…
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you” (Joshua3:5).
A long awaited dream of us, sisters, sr. Sudha Rani, sr. Tejasri, Sr. Swapna, sr. Nilima and sr. Kanchan to consecrate ourselves totally to God was fulfilled on 21 April 2023, the anniversary of the canonical opening of our congregation of FMSC. Five of us repeated the words of Samuel “You have called me, here I am Lord” with hearts full of love, gratitude and firm conviction. Remaining in the world, while not being of the world we would like to be prophetic witnesses, as said Pope Francis “the world and the Church need you to be signal light for the journey of the men and women of our time”.
God is still alive, present and still loves the world through the consecrated person. Every consecrated persons is an extension of God’s heart and hands in this world of today. Convinced of this, we make ourselves available for Him in order to be used as His instrument who sow the seed of love and compassion of our Saviour. The life we have chosen to love Jesus with an undivided heart till the end of our lives by a stronger motivation, greater clarity and better formation is the answer to many of our friends who ask us how is it possible to live as single.
21st April 2023 was dawn with full of enthusiasm and joy. In the appointed time, with the moving steps of our novices in tune with the melodious song we moved towards the Altar along with our parents accompanied with our Provincial Superior and councilors. We were delighted to see many people; the presence of the Bishop of Vijayawada diocese who was the main celebrant of the Eucharistic celebration, priests, sisters, relatives, friends and well-wishers. With much joy and enthusiasm, we prostrated before the Altar to seek the intercession of all the angels and saints to belong to God our whole being, every corner of our person.
St. Francis of Assisi who radically lived the Gospel centuries back reminded us that even today, in this technological and consumeristic world it is possible to live the Gospel radically. The Bishop, mons. Joseph Raja Rao Thelagathoti in his homily reminded us the importance of offering ourselves fully to the Lord and the beauty of living the evangelical counsels in this contemporary world. Conforming ourselves completely to Christ our Spouse: poor, chaste and obedient we made our vow to the Lord into the hands of Sr.Mini Joseph, our provincial Superior delegated by our Superior General.
The Crucifix and the Bible we received reminded us to “go to the whole world, proclaim the Good news to all creation”(Mk.16:15), “you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samariah and indeed to the ends of the earth”(Acts 1:8). Here after we pray for the grace of the Lord not to seek in the Gospel words of comfort and consolation or to search for miracles, but for the grace of willingness to accept the reality of the cross by gazing at our Jesus crucified. The announcement of our Provincial Superior that we are permanently belongs to the family of the Congregation of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart filled our hearts with great joy. We are enthusiastic to go forward being in our fraternal family of FMSC our little paradise.
We are grateful to Our Superior General Most Rev. Paola Dotto and her Council team, and our provincial Superior Rev. Sr. Mini Joseph and her council team for helping us to be more loving, more human and more Christ like persons. We join our hearts to all the sisters of our congregation, specially our formators who played an important role in forming us as FMSC.
(Sr.Sudha Rani, Sr.Swapna, Sr.Tejasri, Sr.Kanchan and Sr.Nilima)
