On Tuesday afternoon we began arriving at Avenida del Valle; around 6 p.m. our beloved house “Inter” bustled with joy, kisses, hugs and smiles everywhere … many Daughters of Jesus in Madrid, almost all of us, were gathered there.
In addition to our celebration of Juanitatxo’s birthday, we were gathered for the sisters celebrating their Golden Jubilee, and Maria Inez and Clara, who arrived in Madrid for the canonical visit to the Juniorate, were with us.
We started our gathering around the table of the Bread and the Word, accompanied by Cipri Diaz Marcos, SJ, who at all times was familiar and profound, cordial and poetic, giving special depth to the Eucharist.
Having arrived from Africa the day before, on the flight he was loosely constructing his homily, and paraphrasing Zephaniah, he told us beautiful things: “They are fifty years of exultant joy because the Lord is Savior; fifty years receiving graces in him, shouting: You are my strength, my song, the well where I shall drink water that quenches me …
Fifty years exalting, helping from one’s littleness, learning to love with her and like her … in your youth, on top of the basket of first fruits, you were given a vast, wide world to harvest light, crossing deserts, loneliness, wanting to be like Jesus and in Him to be His daughters, in chastity, poverty and obedience … the life that is Christ teaches us to be wine, bread, food of many on the road, following Candida Maria de Jesus, drinking from her wisdom.”
After Communion, Pilar, Carmen, Sisa and Francisca made us feel their heartfelt thanksgiving for this Golden Jubilee that they are celebrating: family, Congregation, places where they went, laymen and laywomen, joys and shadows … everything becomes a grateful song to life and to the Lord who called them and accompanied this way with his faithfulness.
Afterward we shared a delicious supper in the dining room, and in the end came gifts to the sisters who were the honorees, and a time of family conversation with Maria Inez, which involved: Vietnam, with three sisters who are making their first vows; Venezuela with the very serious situation which the country and our sisters are suffering with great need; we are leaving Caracas to stay in Villa del Rosario, where the sisters want to stay …
With Mozambique in civil war, one can not travel by land. There is a young Nigerian spending a time of experience with our sisters. She got to know us through the web and is called Rita. She has been in Maputo for a month.
We talked also of Taiwan, of Bangladesh, difficult work but very rewarding in terms of the apostolate … Maria Inez asks us for prayers, to communicate with those sisters who are far away and alone …
Familial dialogue, the joy of sharing, of knowing about our sisters scattered throughout the world; an afternoon full of life of the universal Body where the Lord continues to invite us to follow Him, working for communion despite the distances which were reduced for us by the news and also by the presence of Fuencisla and Matilde Sanz with their sister Rafa, Claretian, making present to us Bolivia, Venezuela and Argentina …
An afternoon-evening to sing all that the Lord is doing in us as He did in Mary, in Candida Maria de Jesus, to be thankful for so much good received and correspond with the enthusiastic joy that He himself gives us.
Maria Luisa Berzosa fi
