Easter Season 2022
Happy Easter season! We, along with Christians all over the world, are celebrating the foundational Mysteries of our faith during this Easter season as we pray together for peace in our war-torn world.
In our last article, we shared that our Congregation was beginning a new site for the international novitiate in Kenya, Nairobi, and that three of our sisters were there to form the professed members of the community. These sisters are (left to right): Teopista Babirye and Beatrice Atukunda of Uganda, and Carmen Garcia of Mexico.
We are pleased to share that in February three Ugandan women, as pre-novices, joined these sisters, and another pre-novice will be coming later this month from Madagascar. There is also one Kenyan woman who began her novitiate this month, so eight women will form this community. There are four other women in Madagascar who have begun their discernment regarding a commitment to religious life.
It was encouraging to learn from our recent report of our Congregation that currently we have 38 women who have made a temporary commitment of vows in SMR, and six of these women have already requested to make a permanent commitment of vows as Sisters of Mary Reparatrix. These women are currently living in the SMR Regions of Uganda/Kenya/Congo, Colombia/Panama/Peru, Madagascar, and France.
As always, we ask our readers to join us in prayer for all these women as they continue their discernment regarding their life-time commitments.
In addition to sharing this new life in SMR, we want to share with our readers a lovely gift that has been given to our Congregation in Liege, Belgium. In 1818, our foundress, Emilie d’Oultremont, d’Hooghvorst was born in Soumagne in the province of Liege, Belgium, and as a Congregation we wished to have something visible to honor her there, and the place of her birth. In February, an image of our foundress was hung in the Cathedral in Liege, Belgium. There was a festive celebration to honor our foundress, and happily several of our sisters were able to be present for the occasion. This year will mark twenty-five years since Emilie was declared Blessed by the Church in October 1997.
Margaret Hoey