From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
    Jesus is Son of God and Son of Mary   
      
    "We should carefully note the order of the words here, and the more   
   firmly they are engrafted in our heart, the more evident it will be   
   that the sum total of our redemption consists in them. For they   
   proclaim with perfect clarity that the Lord Jesus, that is, our   
   Savior, was both the true Son of God the Father and the true Son of a   
   mother who was a human being. 'Behold,' he says, 'you will conceive in   
   your womb and give birth to a son'--acknowledge that this true human   
   being assumed the true substance of flesh from the flesh of the   
   Virgin! 'He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most   
   High'--confess too that this same Son is true God of true God,   
   co-eternal Son forever of the eternal Father!"   
   by Bede the Venerable(excerpt from HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.3.22)   
      
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   2 January – Blessed Maria Anna Blondin SSA   
   Also known as   
   Esther Blondin   
   Sister Marie-Anne   
   Marie-Anne Blondin   
      
   Memorial   
   2 January   
   18 April (Canada)   
      
    Religious and Foundress of the Sisters of Saint Anne, apostle of the   
   Holy Eucharist and Divine Providence, Teacher – born Esther Blondin on   
   18 April 1809 in Terrebonne, Quebec, Canada and died on 2 January 1890   
   at Lachine, Quebec, Canada of natural causes.   
      
   Esther Blondin, in religion “Sister Marie Anne”, was born in   
   Terrebonne (Quebec, Canada) on 18 April 1809, in a family of deeply   
   Christian farmers. From her mother she inherited a piety centred on   
   Divine Providence and the Eucharist and, from her father, a deep faith   
   and a strong patience in suffering. Esther and her family were victims   
   of illiteracy so common in French Canadian milieu of the 19th century.   
   Still an illiterate at the age of 22, Esther worked as a domestic in   
   the Convent of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, that had   
   been recently opened in her own village. A year later, she registered   
   as a boarder in order to learn to read and write. She then became a   
   novice in the Congregation but had to leave, due to ill health.   
      
   In 1833, Esther became a teacher in the parochial school of Vaudreuil.   
   Little by little, she found out, that one of the causes of this   
   illiteracy was due to a certain Church ruling, that forbade that girls   
   be taught by men and that boys be taught by women. Unable to finance   
   two schools, many parish priests chose to have none. In 1848, under an   
   irresistible call of the Spirit, Esther presented to her Bishop,   
   Ignace Bourget, a plan she long cherished – that of founding a   
   religious congregation “for the education of poor country children,   
   both girls and boys in the same schools”. A rather new project for the   
   time! It even seemed quite rash and contrary to the established order.   
   Since the State was in favour of such schools, Bishop Bourget   
   authorised a modest attempt so as to avoid a greater evil.   
      
   The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Anne was founded in Vaudreuil   
   on 8 September 1850. Esther, now named “Mother Marie Anne”, became its   
   first superior. The rapid growth of this young Community soon required   
   larger quarters.  During the Summer of 1853, Bishop Ignace Bourget   
   transferred the Motherhouse to Saint Jacques de l’Achigan. The new   
   chaplain, Father Louis Adolphe Marechal, interfered in an abusive way   
   in the private life of the Community. During the Foundress’ absence,   
   Father changed the pupils’ boarding fees. Should he be away for a   
   while, he asked that the Sisters await his return to go to confession.   
   After a year of this existing conflict between the chaplain and the   
   Foundress, the latter being anxious to protect the rights of her   
   Community, Bishop Bourget asked Mother Marie Anne, on 18 August 1854,   
   “to resign.” He called for elections and warned Mother Marie Anne “not   
   to accept the superiorship, even if her sisters wanted to re-elect   
   her.” Even though she could be re-elected, according to the Rule of   
   the Community, Mother Marie Anne obeyed her Bishop whom she considered   
   God’s instrument. And she wrote:  “As for me, my Lord, I bless Divine   
   Providence a thousand times for the maternal care he shows me in   
   making me walk the way of tribulations and crosses.”   
      
   Mother Marie Anne, having been named Directress at Saint Genevieve   
   Convent, became the target of attacks from the Motherhouse   
   authorities, influenced by the dictatorship of Father Marechal. Under   
   the pretext of poor administration, Mother Marie Anne was recalled to   
   the Motherhouse in 1858, with the Bishop’s warning: “take means so   
   that she will not be a nuisance to anyone.” From this new destitution   
   and until her death on 2 January 1890, Mother Marie Anne was kept away   
   from administrative responsibilities. She was even kept away from the   
   General Council deliberations when the 1872 and 1878 elections   
   reelected her. Assigned to mostly hidden work in the laundry and   
   ironing room, she led a life of total self-denial and thus ensured the   
   growth of the Congregation. Behold the paradox of an influence which   
   some wanted to nullify! In the Motherhouse basement laundry room in   
   Lachine, where she spent her days, many generations of novices   
   received from the Foundress a true example of obedience and humility,   
   imbued with authentic relationships which ensure true fraternal   
   charity. To a novice who asked her one day why she, the Foundress, was   
   kept aside in such lowly work, she simply replied with kindness :   
   “The deeper a tree sinks its roots into the soil, the greater are its   
   chances of growing and producing fruit.”   
      
   The attitude of Mother Marie Anne, who was a victim of so many   
   injustices, allows us to bring out the evangelical sense she gave to   
   events in her life. Just as Jesus Christ, who passionately worked for   
   the Glory of His Father, so too Mother Marie Anne sought only God’s   
   Glory in all she did. “The greater Glory of God” was the aim she   
   herself gave her Community. “To make God known to the young who have   
   not the happiness of knowing Him” was for her a privileged way of   
   working for the Glory of God. Deprived of her most legitimate rights   
   and robbed of all her personal letters with her bishop, she offered no   
   resistance and she expected, from the infinite goodness of God, the   
   solution to the matter. She was convinced that “He will know well, in   
   his Wisdom, how to discern the false from the true and to reward each   
   one according to his deeds.”   
      
   Prevented from being called “Mother” by those in authority, Mother   
   Marie Anne did not jealously hold on to her title of Foundress, rather   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)