I would like for all my being to be silent and for everything in me to adore Him, to thus penetrate ever more deeply into Him and to be filled with Him. Oh, that I may remain always in the great presence of God. (Blessed Elisabetta Renzi)
Prayer is at the heart of our community and of our mission. The Sister of Our Lady of Sorrows knows that it is only through union with God that her consecration becomes effective, her faith is strengthened, and Christ is able to speak within her. Living in a spirit of prayer enables us to live in the constant search for and the faithful accomplishment of God’s will, his service, and his glory.
The sisters are called to be women shaped by the Eucharist and the Word. We nourish our spirit of prayer with participation in daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration, reciting the Divine Office in common, daily recitation of the Rosary, and having a particular devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows, the special patron of our Congregation.
Being contemplatives in action, we dedicate one hour each day to an encounter with God in meditation. Mindful that the Divine Spouse makes his loving voice heard especially in solitude and recollection of spirit, we also observe the practice of a monthly day of recollection and annually make a retreat for spiritual renewal.
Since “Jesus Crucified must be the life of our soul,” we meditate often on the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and every Friday we honor this profound mystery with the exercise of the Way of the Cross. Also, on each Saturday of the month, we meditate on the sorrows of our Lady who was intimately associated with the Passion of her Divine Son.” (Constitutions of the Congregation n.73)
In addition to communal prayer, fidelity to personal prayer is vital for kindling the fire of divine love and progressing in virtue. For the Sister of Our Lady of Sorrows, prayer is a conversation with God, revealing all our needs to Him, and asking graces from Him just as a child would ask his father.
Prayer leads us to remain in the presence of God throughout the day, inspiring us to love Jesus Christ and seek union with Him, so that we may, in turn, serve him in our brothers and sisters.
The Sacrifice of Mass
The Eucharist, sacrament of love, sign of unity and bond of chairy, consitutes the center of our community life. (Constitutions of the Congregation n. 63)
The Eucharist stands at the center of the Church’s life, so too is our Eucharistic Lord the center of our community life. For each Sister of Our Lady of Sorrows and is truly the source and summit of our daily life. We are drawn by the Eucharist to contemplate and enter more and more into the Paschal Mystery pf our Lord. The Mass which we take part in daily, gives us the grace to unite ourselves to Christ, who laid down His life us.
The Eucharist is a gift in which Christ gives Himself to us and gives us the grace to live our lives as gift. The sacrifice of Mass reminds us of the suffeing of Christ and helps us to accept our suffering and to offer them up together with the suffeings of Christ on Calvary. We come to realize the redemptive value of suffering in our own lives and the lives of others. But we are also reminded by our foundress that ” Alleluia dwels beyond Calvary.”
Mother Elisabetta was a Eucharistic woman. It was the love of the Eucharistic Jesus that characterized and inflamed her piety. She used to say of receiving Jesus at Mass, ” I carry the One who carries me. When a soul has worthly received the sacrament of the Eucharist, it swims in love; it is humble, sweetly mortified, charitable and modest, harmonious with all; it is a soul that is capable of greater sacrifices. With Elisabeta as our example, we too, make the Eucharist the source of our life and mission.
Divine Office
The Divine Office prolongs throughout the day the praise and thanksgiving of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, pray Lauds, Vespers, and Compline in common. This spirit of prayer enables us to live in the constant search for and the faithful accomplishment of God’s will, his service and his glory. (Constitutions of the Congregation n. 65)
The Divine Office, also known as the Liturgy of the Hours, is the “prayer of the whole People of God,” where “the faithful exercise the royal priesthood of the baptized.” This celebration, faithful to the apostolic exhortations to pray constantly, is “so devised that the whole course of the day and night is made holy by the praise of God.”
The office of the Sacred Congregation of Divine worship states that, “From ancient times, the Church has had the custom of celebrating the liturgy of the hours each day. In this way, the Church fulfills the Lord’s precept to pray without ceasing, at once offering its praise to God the Father and interceding for the salvation of the world.” As we pray the divine office, we are united with the whole Church in thanksgiving and praise.
For the Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows, the communal praying of the Liturgy of Hours is central to our life. In this prayer, God is present to our community in a very unique and special way. This divine praise is continued uninterruptedly throughout the day through a spirit of prayer which enables us to live in the constant search for and the faithful accomplishment of God’s will, his service and his glory.
The Rosary
Mother Elisabetta was very devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary from her earliest years, she demonstrated it up to the final moments of her life when she would whisper, “O Vergine Maria, quanto bella sei! Quanto mi piace il verginal candore. Di che adorna risplendi agli occhi miei. Della terra e del ciel tu sei l’amore.” (Oh, Virgin Mary, how beautiful your are! How I love your virginal brightness; How splendid you are, shining before my eyes. You are the love of heven and earth.)
Elisabetta had a particular devotion to the Sorrowful Heart of Mary, also promoting it in the devout practice of the “sanctified carnival.” She optained permission from the Bishop of Rimini, of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to be established at the Conservatory in Coriano, with a difinitive rule approved by the same Bishop. The aim of the Confraternity was to offer to the Virgin all the good done every day, in order to unite it to the “stainless heart of Mary,” and with her to implore, from the Holy Trinity, mercy for sinners adn their conversion. In addition, Elisabetta introduced the association of The Daughters of Mary, which was on expression of her deep feeling of love towards the Blessed Virgin.
Mother Elisabetta left us her daughters a love of the Blessed Virgin Mary who is the model of our life. By praying the rosary, we are drawn deeply into the mystery of Jesus Christ’s life through the eyes of the Mary. The rosary sustains us in our conscecration as we strive to become more and more conformed to Christ in the company of Our Lady.
For this reason, the Constitutions of our Congregation says, ” We honor Mary through our daily community recitation of the holy Rosary, and we make this tribute of filial love a part ot our life by the imiation of her virtues, particulary those which she practiced at the foot of the cross. We make our own the concern of her heart to prevent offenses against God, and we spread her devotions wherever we are.”
