250th Anniversary Year of St. Magdalene of Canossa / 250° anniversario di Santa Maddalena di Canossa
CRISTO REY PROVINCE – North America 2019
Our Province is located in three Nations: Canada, United States and Mexico, where languages are spoken: English and Spanish. We are blessed to serve many people even with a few number of Sisters.
We are 31 Sisters of Perpetual Vows and 2 of Temporary Profession, scattered in 6 communities: one in Canada-Vancouver; two in California USA: San Francisco and Sacramento; one in New Mexico-Albuquerque; one in Chihuahua-Mexico and actually we are opening another in the periphery of Chihuahua city.
1 Sister is in Italy and 1 in Africa for temporary service.
As Sisters of one Province, we are from nine different countries and cultures. For that, we are challenged to move from the multiculturality to interculturality. Another challenge is the age of the Sisters: 65% more than 65 years old and 35% under 50 years old.
We are blessed with 2 Pre-novices and another challenge is to develop Youth Ministry and Vocation promotion.
In the last years, the face of the Province has changed. The number of sick and elderly Sisters has increased. After a long and suffering discernment we decided to close the Spirituality Center in Albuquerque and in the past year we transformed it into a Nursing Home for the elderly Sisters.
We attend to the Evangelization and Pastoral Outreach programs through parishes in the area of Sacramental Formation for adolescents and adults including RCIA, Youth Ministry, Parish Retreats, Spiritual Direction, Assistants to the elderly and homebound, as well as Chaplaincy and Hospital Ministries. We are currently serving at 7 Parishes, one in Canada, four in California, one in Albuquerque and one in Chihuahua. One Sister is the Coordinator of Campus Ministry at St. Ignatius High School and Mission Exposure Program in San Francisco USA.
With generosity and effort we support the three Corporate Ministries:
Casa Angelica, Albuquerque, is licensed to offer full residential care and education to 16 children and young adults with profound disabilities. It is the only home of its kind in the State of New Mexico, USA.
Instituto Educativo Morelos is located in Chihuahua, Mexico. It is a Primary School with a current student body of about 230 children from mid – to low – income families who want their children to learn the human and Christian values so necessary in today’s violent world.
EDYFICA (Canossian Integral Education and Formation) is located in the periphery of the city of Chihuahua. (Mexico). Through this Project, we aim at providing promotional and integral formation to women and children in disadvantaged situations with a variety of programs. Additional improvements have been made for an after-school children care program.
Many lay people support us in the Ministries. They collaborate with us and also we collaborate with them. Without the lay people, we could not do the work, especially the Corporate Ministries.
The Lay Canossians, who we form in each community, are a big grace for us. They are very active in sharing the Charism with those in their life, family, workplace and in their social circle. They are very visible in the Parishes where we serve.
Additionally, the past-students from Hong Kong residents in Canada support us very much.
Also the past-students of Instituto Educativo Morelos (Mexico) are forming in our Charism and in the future, we hope they will help us in our Ministries.
Our challenges are:
Our whole life and our doing, we put in the hands of our Lord, though Mary, Mother of Charity at the foot of the cross, and St. Magdalene, our inspiration.
250th Anniversary Year of St. Magdalene of Canossa / 250° anniversario di Santa Maddalena di Canossa
t. Magdalene giving bread to the poor the Lay Canossians is continuously doing it at present time
30 members of the Escort and Military Band of the Technological Institute of Puebla performed a military drill as they visited the said school, the group of students who traveled from Puebla presented their skills.