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Anniversary of Mother Candida’s canonization

October 16, 2024

The anniversary of Mother Candida’s canonization is always a propitious occasion to recall the event with gratitude, but above all to ask ourselves questions:

What is sanctity? Can I go as far as M. Candida has gone?

God’s call to holiness is not a “burden” to be assumed, a cross to be carried, but an invitation to enter into the dynamic of his love, which is gratuitousness, gift. Pope Francis emphasizes this:

“At the beginning of our being Christians are not doctrines and works, but the amazement of discovering that we are loved, before any of our answers. The Gospel reminds us of the truth of life: “we are loved”.

To be a saint is, above all, to allow oneself to be enveloped by the love of a God who “heals and transforms us, dilates our hearts and predisposes us to love”; the rest comes of its own accord. Accepting, in fact, that we are loved by Him means opening the doors to the Spirit who has the power to transform everything and, therefore, also our heart.

Mother Candida did exactly this: she let herself be loved and transformed, leaving us a beautiful witness of this love, her life given to others . The beauty of our vocation to holiness lies in the fact that God chose us even before coming into the world to carry out his plan of salvation, a plan that each of us must discover by patiently discerning in prayer the signs that God himself sends us.

She began her journey of holiness the moment she heard the Lord’s call and decided to be all and “only for God”. This was from beginning to end. Thinking of the day of her canonization, when the life and work of Mother Candida became history and an example of holiness in the Church, I am overcome not so much with emotion as with gratitude to God who wanted me to be part of this story, an extension – like every Daughter of Jesus – of St. Candida’s desire to bring the Gospel to the end of the world.

I remember and see again her large and deep eyes, reflecting peace, her gaze projected towards another horizon, “the Other”, setting that goal already certain in her life, because certain and palpable was the promise that God had made to her to be a docile instrument in his hands. Eyes from which transpired goodness, eyes that certainly cried in the hard moments when everything seemed to go against him, but that never lost the horizon…. I go back in my mind to that October 17, 2010? I repeat to myself that holiness is not achieved by doing great things, but by doing the little daily things with great charity and fidelity to God’s plan for us, with joys and sufferings, like her who knew how to live and practice that Ignatian “indifference” that led her to desire to do only the will of God.

Mother Candida wanted to be a saint and she wanted her daughters to be saints…. “to sanctify herself” and “to sanctify her neighbor”, but I don’t think she was thinking of the holiness of the altars and yet, to see her a saint is one of the most beautiful gifts that God could give us because, like all the saints, she is an illuminating beacon that constantly exhorts us not to be afraid to desire holiness because it is what we are destined to from eternity. And may this happy day in which we remember the canonization of our Mother Candida be lived by all the Daughters of Jesus with great joy and hope, always ready to go “to the ends of the earth in search of souls!”.

Thank you Saint Candida.

Caterina Ciriello FI, Rome

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