On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the birth of our sister, Venerable Servant of God, Sister Teresa Mira García, we present contents to deepen our understanding of her, especially as A MISSIONARY BY ESSENCE AND EXPERT IN COMMUNION.
Based on the 4 axes of the CMT mission and on our Constitutions, Sister Beata Kayitesi has prepared this project of permanent formation that will accompany us during these four weeks before the celebration on 26 September.

Introduction:

This moment of isolation is not a time to confine myself within myself and be bursting of anguish, but an appropriate time to deep my relationship with God and neighbor. Our sister and friend, Teresa Mira García, is my companion and spiritual guide through the reading of testimonies and writes about her life.

After some weeks, on September 26, we will celebrate the 125th anniversary of her birthday. As spiritual preparation, the Holy Spirit inspires me to deep in her life at the light of our charism. The charism that she incarnated in her life and transmitted to us.

“The Lord gave us life for not remaining static”, she says. To the sisters and lay, called to live the charism of communion at the palautian style, Teresa Mira reminds us our mission of “serving with passion” (Const. 21); not to remain static, but to put to the service of others the richness of our charism.

The message of Teresa Mira is present always because the good never expires. We are called continually to expend our life loving, at the example of Christ “who was all his life doing good” (Acts 10,38). The characteristic charism of Teresa, of doing good to all, without distinction, allowed her to live faithfully to the charism of our founder: “Because I love you, Holy Church, I seek in the services the mean to please you” (MR 9,7). In doing good to all, she had understood that the mission is our way of life. With the witnessing of her life, Teresa Mira clearly confirms that “we are missionary by essence” because the mission “is not one dimension more, but the reason to exist as a family” (Const. 21).

Because of this, our “expert in communion” can offer us, with her simple and surrendered life, a key to read the four important axes of our mission, at the light of the charism of our Father Founder and of our Constitutions.

It means:

  • Creating communion;
  • Announcing the beauty of the Church;
  • Restoring the veiled beauty;
  • Listening and answering, in total availability, to the most urgent needs of the Church.

 

 

Teresa Mira, “expert in communion”

In his apostolic letter to the consecrated persons, Pope Francis invites us to become “experts of communion” and explains that the experts are persons who have a perfect understanding of their topic and are capable to guide others to do it.

Teresa Mira humbly became expert of communion, loving and serving, doing good to all. In the proper time she understood that “the Lord did not leave us alive to be static, but to do good to all that need it”.

Convinced that the love urges us to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church, following the example of our Founder Francisco Palau, Teresa Mira put herself in action, not worrying of the insecurity of that time, because of the Spanish civil war.

For Teresa, when the matter was loving, there was not any obstacle that could stop her to go on. This audacity is the same that our Father Founder express to Juana Gracias with these terms: “My sister, you know already my nature, when God calls me, there is nothing that comes to my way, so terrible and unpleased, that I will not overcome and surpass it” (Letter 54,1).

As her Founder, Teresa Mira also had done of her mission a natural passion.

The witnesses tell us that forgetting herself expanded her heart and very soon was born in her, the desire of surrendering herself to the service of others, thinking more in the others than in herself and forgetting herself for the good of others. At three years old she was living already like an adult, helping her mother by her own initiative.

Several Christian people who got to know her, speak of her universal charity lived in a simple and discreet manner. “Don’t let your left hand to know what your right hand does” (Mathew 6,3).

Teresa Mira was like that! She was not noisy to do good. Through her smile, her sweetness, her tender treatment she was transmitting the message of love. Her way of being and living was already an apostolate. The life of Teresa Mira reveals the mission as our style of life (Cf. Const. 21).

Her way of living serves as our model to put into practice our Constitutions. We focus on simple actions, knowing that a word and a gesture can renew life and our relationships: with God, with ourselves, with others and with nature. They can awaken in people a transforming and unifying dynamism that satisfies the most intimate longing of every man and woman: to love and to be loved (Const. 22).

The spirituality of Teresa Mira of “doing good to all” is becoming more valuable today, because it invites us to open ourselves to the neighbor when the Church is calling us to win, to fight against “the culture of the indifference and to foster the culture of the encounter, this fruitful encounter, this encounter that gives back to each person their own dignity as child of God” (Pope Francis).

All of us, religious and lay, are called to promote this culture of the encounter, going out of ourselves to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church, each one according to his / her strengths, capacities, means and gifts…

Therefore, nobody is excluded because all human being, created at the image of God has something to give and can collaborate in the happiness of others. As good administrators of the multiple grace of God, put at the service of others the charism that each one has received (1 Pt 4,10).

Teresa Mira did not study, but she knew how to live out the charism of our Founder and she is for us today an example of Christian woman who lived faithfully to the gospel demands of love and universal charity and she is a reference for our mission.

SOON: 

To discover in Teresa Mira the four central pillars, upon which our living, thinking and doing is based.

I. With Teresa Mira, CREATE COMMUNION

 

 

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source: cmtpalau.org