Canonization of MOTHER marie eugenie

Letter #6 from The Canonization Committee, May 27, 2007

Very dear Sisters and friends,

In ten days we shall be at St. Peter’s Square to hear and to receive the Church’s proclamation of the sanctity of Marie Eugenie of Jesus. Try to imagine the all feelings we will experience and will stay with us during this grace-filled event. Yes, God’s time has come and we are ready to welcome the word of Life that will come from the proclamation of this good news: one of us has fully lived the baptismal call to holiness: Be holy as I, the Lord, am holy.

The liturgy of these days helps us to contemplate Jesus’ deep relationship of love with his Father: Father, all that you have is mine, just as all that I have is yours. We are all called to this same covenant of love. Marie Eugenie left us this prayer – her prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, a covenant prayer:

It is for you alone, Lord
That I am here before the Blessed Sacrament,
You are the all of my life.
My thoughts, my affections are all for you,
And since I cannot always be at your feet,
My life must then be a constant prayer.
Prayer must be the soul of my life,
May each of my thoughts, my occupations
Be related to this plenitude of life
With which I want to belong to you.
(From a text of 1872)

It is easy for us to say, “Lord, all that is yours is mine.” On the contrary, to say, “All that I have is yours” is a gift God gave to Marie Eugenie. We will hear this prayer of Marie Eugenie of Jesus sung at St. Peter’s Basilica at the end of our pilgrimage in Rome. Then we shall take the road back home to our daily tasks, bringing with us the desire to make of our lives a covenant of love: our lives will be transfigured as the life of Marie Eugenie of Jesus was transfigured - as the image of the icon makes us contemplate.

We are now at the final preparations for the canonization. In Rome, our team has been enlarged -- sisters and friends of the Assumption. Since Easter, Regina Victoria, Catherine Sesboue, Stella Maria, and recently Agnes Emmanuel, have joined us. There are still many details to settle but we still have ten days before us.

Some pilgrims are already on their way to Rome. Auteuil, Paris, Metz and Preisch welcome them at the moment. The news of the canonization of M.Marie Eugenie is spreading… The media has a wide coverage of this Church event. The more the news is known, the more we are invited, even pushed – lay and religious together – to give testimony of our lives in the Assumption, and the more we feel challenged to live what Marie Eugenie wanted to live – the heritage she has left us: to belong to God and only to God.

Around 6,000 pilgrims have registered… and we know that others will arrive in Rome for June 3rd. Bishops from dioceses where the Congregation is present today as well as where we were present before, priests, religious… they will be many attending our celebration. Our Assumptionist brothers will also come from different countries. There will also be delegations from all branches of the big family of the Assumption. Msgr. Andre Vingt Trois will lead the pilgrimage of the Diocese of Paris and all the priests of Notre Dame de l’Assomption are accompanying a big group from the parish in the neighborhood of Auteuil. More than a hundred members of the Milleret family are coming. The President of the Republic of the Philippines will also be present in this celebration. As you know, some delegations had difficulties in obtaining visas for the lay and the young, fewer difficulties for the sisters.

The evening musicale in homage to Marie Eugenie has been prepared with much love and Assumption spirit by Pinky Valdes and Ana Valdes Lim (Philippines). All provinces worked to offer their part, their homage!

On June 2, after the opening Mass, 300 young people will gather together taking the path of the first Christians in Rome, as well as hundreds of adults. Many others will live the same experience, following their own itineraries. Rome, a city that is already “over-visited”, will be even more… we entrust this pilgrimage to her who convoked and gathered us in Rome.

We end this letter in telling you that it has been our privilege to participate in the preparation of the canonization of Marie Eugenie of Jesus – an experience of communion with her in order to feel and to try to translate what she herself would have wanted us to experience and celebrate at the heart of the Church through the gift of holiness that God granted to her: My holiness can only come from God, she wrote.

When we think of this great celebration, we think of the grandeur of the gift of God. We are however aware that this great event is very small before the world. Though small, we are convinced that it can be a simple light, a little lamp that will light up our path, the path of our contemporaries, and that will radiate in our lives so that the world will believe in Him who is the Path to holiness.

With all our sisterly affection,
Katrin, Maria Paola and Cristina María

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Official Logo for Mother Marie Eugenie's Canonization

Pope Benedict XVI and the Basilica of St. Peter, Rome

Pope Paul VI proclaiming Mother Marie Eugenie blessed at Beatification: Rome 1975

Blessed Marie Eugenie's tomb in the chapel of the Mother House, Paris

US delegation banner for canonization