This Sunday, May 28, 2023, we celebrate Pentecost, a great feast for the Church and also a special time for our Congregation of Sisters Adorers, Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity, and for the Adorers’ Family.

Pentecost

The Feast of Pentecost, after Easter, is the second most important Sunday of the liturgical year. In the New Testament, chapter 2 of the Acts of the Apostles recounts the descent of the Holy Spirit during a meeting of the Apostles in Jerusalem, starting point of the Church’s mission and the spread of Christ’s faith.

This Sunday’s Gospel (John 20:19-23) describes that in the evening of the first day of the week “when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’“.

Jesus showed them his hands and his side. “The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord”. Then, the Lord “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’”.

The greeting of peace (shalom), repeated twice in this passage, is the greeting from God and the greeting to prepare the apostles for what He is going to give them: the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit guarantees them the event of the Resurrection and also that of the mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”. Pentecost, therefore, is also the definitive confirmation of how the Church, born of Easter, must be open to all people.

A special Pentecost in the life of St. Micaela and for the origins of the Sisters Adorers’ Congregation

The feast of Pentecost on 23 May 1847 corresponds to the second of the three moments in the life of our foundress, St. Micaela of the Blessed Sacrament, which gave birth to our Congregation.

On this solemnity, like the apostles, St. Micaela received the power of the Holy Spirit in a mystical grace: “…an interior light, which worked in me very marked effects … I felt a change of inclinations and a superior strength to overcome me in everything, a continuous presence of God … a craving that devoured me to pray … great sorrow for my sins …” (Autobiography, III, 4).

From that moment on, her life changed radically, entering into the ways of mystical Eucharistic prayer, penance and dedication to charity.

Thirteen years later, she herself narrates what this experience in Paris, France, meant to her: “… I saw Him so great, so powerful, so good, so loving, so merciful, that I resolved to serve only a Lord who gathers all things to fill my heart”.

As Sisters Adorers we celebrate Pentecost along with these representative moments for our charism. It is our desire that these remain alive in each of us, giving life to the whole Congregation and the Adorers’ Family.