Dearest Sisters and Young Women in Formation,
As we adore the tender Child Jesus lying in the manger, we join the angels in singing a hymn filled with joy and exultation: “Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis”.
The Word became flesh and dwells among us. The living Word enters our daily lives and transforms our entire existence into His dwelling place. He comes to us fragile and vulnerable so that we may welcome and embrace one another’s fragilities as a gift. He is with us so that, healed by His Word, we may become seeds of peace, bringing reconciliation and communion. He is with us, because nourished and transformed by Him, the Bread of Life, we may become mothers who give life to the world.
We thank Emmanuel, God-with-us, and we ask for the graces we need so that His will may be fully accomplished in us. We recall what our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, told us at Christmas in 1961 as he contemplated the mystery of the Incarnate God, pointing out to us which graces we, the Daughters of St. Paul, should ask for and with what intention we should live our Pauline vocation.
The great gift we must ask for at Christmas is this: good will.
The Son of God became incarnate for the glory of the Lord, the heavenly Father—to glorify Him—and to bring peace to humanity, that is, grace. But this grace requires people of good will: that we truly desire to love the Lord, that we want to become holy, that we form within ourselves a beautiful ideal of holiness, a beautiful ideal to imitate Jesus Christ—indeed, a life firmly rooted in Christ. This deeply felt ideal will stir and strengthen good will within us.
Remembering the Founder’s words, let us carry good intentions in our hearts each day and live in a constant search for “the good” of all. Let us become channels that transmit God’s light and blessing to our neighbors who have lost their sense of meaning and wander in darkness.
Placing our hope in the love of Christ who lives within us and conforming ourselves to Him each day, let us live with joy our beautiful vocation as Daughters of St. Paul, a free and unmerited gift that has been given to us.
I take this opportunity to share my prayer intentions and to invite you to pray for vocations: for our vocation as Daughters of St. Paul, for the vocation of the members of the Pauline Family, and for new vocations for the Church and the Pauline Family.
On behalf of the sisters of the General Government, I wish a blessed Christmas and a peaceful New Year to you all, dear sisters. Best wishes as well to our brothers and sisters of the Pauline Family, to your families, collaborators, friends, benefactors, and to all who work with us in evangelization.
With great affection, in communion of joy and hope.
Sr. Mari Lucia Kim
and Sisters of the General Government
