Maria’s Motherhood and the Birth of the Congregation of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ

Feeling life within the womb is a privilege of Mothers, but all women in some ways have an intuition of it, predisposed as they are to this miraculous gift. The acceptance of the other, the nurturing, the generosity and empathy are all contained in the vocation of Motherhood, but is not the exclusive province of the woman who has physically given birth.

Maria De Mattias was not an exemption. It was conceived in her being the Love of Jesus Crucified and the Passion to Collaborate with Him in His work of Redemption. On March 1, 1834, just after her 29th birthday, she began her labor pains of seeing herself out of Vallecorsa (her birthplace), from her father who tearfully offered her to God. Her pains during the travel were the foretaste of the cost of discipleship. Yet, the power to give birth is coming from within that made even the Bishop to bless her in awe, seeing in her a prophetic woman far beyond her time.

Finally on March 4, 1834, Maria gave birth to the Congregation of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, in a small mountainous place of Acuto. It was the impulse of the Spirit that gifted her with a special charism that thrusts Maria to give it a name that contained it all. The Congregation has to be a visible sign of God’s love made perfect through the Blood of Jesus.

From then she began her Spiritual Maternity; a witness to God’s love in her own life and led others to the knowledge and love of the Paschal Lamb.

Acuto had become the home that witnessed how

Maria lived out her maternity. Her witness

became the light and the voice of the spirit for her

first daughters who recognized their own vocation in her. These

daughters who were well taken cared of became the first daughters who shared in her apostolic

enthusiasm.“May the Lord bless this work of His and provide me with the members according to His heart,

since there is much to do for the souls of my “dear

neighbor.” (L 97)

The Adorer had to spend much time in

contemplation and be ready to challenge the storms and distrust, to move from one place to another, to speak to the

people, to hold conferences,

recollections, retreats, catechesis and others

works that was believed to be out of her

capabilities as a woman of that time. Through her

letters, Maria does not ask the Adorers who

followed her only to carry out a ministry, innovative

and responsive to new needs as it might be. She

demanded Apostolic Passion that gave birth to

Missions.

Going out of Going out of Acuto…Acuto…

In November of 1840, Maria went out from Acuto. The opening of

the first community in Vallecorsa was

just the beginning. The

requests to open school all

throughout Italy rapidly increase and thus Maria was always in

“haste” to respond to the needs of the Church in her

time.

A special significant expansion was the school established in Rome in the house of the converted Russian Princess Wolkonsky in 1847. This movement brought the New Congregation to the attention of prominent persons including Pope Pius IX who entrusted to the Adorers the Hospice of San Luigi in Rome and an orphanage in Civitavecchia. He received Maria in audience several times and in 1855 he granted the Decree of Praise for the Congregation.

The Adorers did not have as its goal a particular ministry. Rather it took its inspiration from the Mystery of the Blood of Christ and sought to bring its power to God’s people, especially women and girls. Her plan for the Congregation included more than the variety of ministries that she projected. To her ministry of founding, organizing, leading and guiding the growth and expansion of the “new kind of Congregation”, Maria dedicated all her strength. This example saw and experienced by her daughters, the formation they received and the proposal of life ideal which they accepted and shared made of them “women who like Maria are born to give birth themselves.” They themselves conceived in their being the charism which God gave first to Maria herself. Eventually, the seeds sown in Acuto was scattered all over Italy.

Expansions Abroad

Besides the remarkable development in Italy, the Congregation of the Adorers also expanded abroad. Already in 1847, a group of German speaking contemplative Adorers of the Most Precious Blood in Steinerberg, Switzerland, at their request was aggregated to the Italian Foundation through the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.

This was another beginning of giving birth to a farther land. This group of Adorers same with the one of Maria lack no suffering brought about by persecution and exile from their own land. Brought to disband from Gurtweil, a small group had gone to the United States of America. Extreme poverty and difficulty accompanied them but the expansions of the exiled Adorers were incomprehensible.

Ruma Province in Illinois after its expansion in the nearby places went as Missionaries to China. In later decades their missions abroad included Puerto Rico, Bolivia and Guatemala. It was also from this Province came the Five ASC Martyrs of Charity who were killed in Liberia, Africa on October 1992. Although there have been no Adorers working in Liberia since that year, the people of Liberia have remained close to the heart of the United States Adorers.

Ruma Center - Ruma, Illinois

This rapid expansion gave birth to the establishment of the Wichita Province. From there some went to Amazons in Brazil and later this group was established to be an independent province. In the late 1970’s, Wichita Adorers gave birth to a mission across the Pacific in Korea.

Wichita Center - Wichita, Kansas Brazil

Korea

While these foundations from the nucleus of exiled Gurtweil Adorers in US and expanded to Missions Abroad, a very small group who has opted to remain in Europe developed in other directions. Mostly aged and ill, they endured exile in Austria for several years and then received an invitation to settle in Bosnia and later established communities in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

From here, another group went to US that gave birth to Colombia Province in Pennsylvania. After a great suffering of the aftermath of WWII, civil strife and communist oppression, the Provincial Center of Bosnia was relocated in Zagreb which is now the Schaan Region. From there in 1963, Sisters left to take up an apostolate for Croatian emigrants in Australia, work which has expanded and continues today.

St. Joseph Convent/Columbia Center – Columbia, Pennsylvania

From the foundation in Bosnia, yet more expansions occurred. After WWII some of them who were Polish descent were able to return to Poland in Bolesławeic which was also developed into Province. Today, Sisters from this Province are working also in Belgium as well as in Siberia and Ukraine. Since 2006, St. Maria De Mattias has become the patroness of the City of Bolesławeic.

The time had come also for Italian Adorers to realize their desire for foreign Mission. In 1969, two Adorers from Acuto Province and two from Rome Province arrived in Tanzania. The arrival of other Adorers opened up for apostolic possibilities. Later, development have given the Congregation 2 more communities and now, in A celebration that took place yesterday, together with the celebration that marked the 177th year of the Congregation, Tanzania is declared a Region Ad Experimentum.

Tanzania

The Indian Region was formerly part of Florence Region of Italy. The seed of mission was sown to 8 Indian young women set out to begin their formation in Italy. Eventually after an integral formation comes another milestone in the life of the Congregation, the establishment of the Indian Mission in Bangalore in 1981. Other communities followed. Detaching itself from the mother branch and with the readiness to give birth, it became a region in 2005 with its independent administration. The Sisters also render their services in the General Administration and in health services in Rome.

India Region

Having received a request by a young Filipina to be able to enter the Congregation and to complete her formation in her homeland, the province of Bari in Italy explored the possibility of opening here in the Philippines. On March 4, 1991, Bari began a mission here with 2 sisters from Italy. With the passing of time, other Italian and Filipina Adorers joined the first group.

The realities of extreme poverty which distorts the face of dignity of a person, involved the Adorer’s choice to be, by the power of the charism received, women of reconciliation and solidarity called to promote and generate life precisely where the wounds are deepest, where life itself and human dignity, made precious by Christ Bloodshed, are offended and destroyed. This marked the birth of the Giovanni Merlini Apostolic Center which is now St. Maria De Mattias Mission Clinic providing not only a medical assistance to the less privilege but a wholistic approach to healing. With the DOTS (Directly Observed Therapy Short course) Program- TB patients found cure and attention from the Sisters.

“I recommend the care of all, especially the poor. How many

poor little children are abandoned, let us have

compassion on them” (MDM, Letters)

These words of St. Maria accompanied the steps of the Adorers to streets where it is easy to meet children abandoned by parents and left on their own. Compassion becomes action: on April 2001, 8 little ones find the warmth of a family again in the hospitality of the Sisters in “St. Gaspar Orphanage” and which is now the place where we gather together, the St. Maria De Mattias Center Orphanage. In Addition to this ministries are catechesis and formations. Today we celebrate the 20th year of ASC’s presence here in the Philippines.

To give an idea of the amazing, rapid development of the Adorer’s action, we need only to recall that in 1866, the year of Maria’s death, there were 66 places of ministry scattered all over Italy but also in Germany, US and England. Now there are almost 2000 Adorers present in 27 countries all over the world.

The burden on Maria’s shoulder was no small matter but it was a labor shared by her daughters. Maria was truly a “Mother” for them, a model, a concrete presence which stimulated all of the Adorers to generosity and availability but also the cement that kept them united at all times even the most difficult.

St. Maria De Mattias was canonized a Saint in 2003, a model of Holiness in the Church. She is not just a Mother to the Adorers but to all of us.

Maria wasted no time and so all the Adorers who conceived in their womb the Blood of Jesus Crucified that aims always to bring back “the beautiful order of things”. The Blood that flows to give life to the world.

The Adorers, worldwide, wear the symbol of the heart

with a cross mounted above. Drop of blood are engraved on the heart to remind

them that they are called to “retract”

(draw in) and reflect a living image of

that divine charity with which the blood of JESUS was shed and of which it was

and is sign, expression , measure and

pledge. “(MDM in ASC Constitution,

L.C.2)