FOREVER '81 in the ETERNAL CITY

CANONIZATION DVD SET

CANONIZATION DVD SET AVAILABLE FOR SALE
DVD1: Canonization at St. Peter's Square
DVD2: Youth Night at Sala Nervi
DVD3: Special features including the AVPs presented by the participating nations, as well as the music from their performances.

Check out the music samples on the sidebar.

If you live in the Philippines, please contact AAA in Assumption San Lorenzo for purchases.
If you live in the USA, CANADA, Central and South America, please contact Monica Francisco at monica2bees@yahoo.com
If you live in Europe or elsewhere, please contact Assumption in Paris.

MASS OF THANKSGIVING

8:00 a.m, Monday, June 4, 2007: St. Peter's Basilica, presided by the Mgr. Andre Vingt-Trois, the Archbishop of Paris

Excerpts from his homily:
Yes, we are rejoicing after the magnificent celebration of yesterday around the Holy Father, and with all our hearts we can sing: “Jubilate Deo, cantate Domino” (Rejoice for God, sing to the Lord), and: “Without end I’m singing the love of the Lord.” What motivates our joy is not only the majestic greatness of our celebration, but above all the privilege of sharing in the extraordinary event of a canonization. It is indeed an amazing event, for the Church, with all her authority in the Holy Spirit, assures us that in those who are canonized, the work of God—the work of salvation and grace—has been achieved and has reached its fulfillment. We believe and we know in faith that one of ours, a human being, has reached participation in God’s glory even before the final resurrection—the resurrection of the flesh.
… this canonization gives a universal relevance to the joy that each one may feel personally. Our sister is now presented to all the faithful as a figure of the whole Church of which they are the members. She is a model of the Christian life, a soul in which what God wants to make of every one of us has been accomplished so well that she has become transparent to the divine light.…Our thanksgiving has an accurate definition in the opening prayer of St. Marie-Eugénie’s feast: “In the faith that she had retrieved you made her realize that all honor and glory are restored to you through humanity regenerated in Christ.” The few words of this prayer reveal Marie-Eugénie’s relevance today. Like many in modern societies, she had experienced the ordeal of a broken family and financial difficulties destroying the initial harmony. Like many again, and although she had been baptized, she had been educated with no religious practice or knowledge of the faith. Yet it should not be forgotten that she found in her mother, even when the family was well off, a model of care for the others and genuine generosity. Even if as a girl growing up in an elegant environment she did feel a hunger and thirst for something different, discovering the faith never was to lead her to scorn or hate the world or declare it worthless. What changed her outlook was a passionate quest for intelligence...In Christ, Marie-Eugénie discovered not only the one who pulls humanity out of its misery, but also the one who reveals to us how deeply the denial of love or sin can destroy men, as he announces the splendor of the destiny which Gods offers them.
...The conviction that “all honor and glory are restored to God through humanity regenerated” is the root of St. Marie-Eugénie’s educational enterprise. The limits of her own training, the ordeals she had had to go through, the loss of her social status because of her father’s bankruptcy—all this had prepared her to realize that women have another vocation than playing, even perfectly, the role society expected them to play. In a strongly hierarchic world, she grasped that in God’s view only the person mattered, with his or her fundamental liberty, and that all that was taught made no sense unless it helped shaping up a spiritual man or woman, that is to say someone capable of accomplishing his or her missions and taking up the challenges of life, not merely to meet the social demands, but out of love, simply finding in the circumstances the opportunities to share that love dwelling in the heart.
...Dear friends, you girls and boys, you first who are being educated in the schools of the Sisters of the Assumption, but also all the others, listen to the message that God is sending to you by inviting you to celebrate St. Marie-Eugénie. The classes you attend, the exams you take certainly aim at making you capable of reaching a social status thanks to what we call “good jobs”—which today often means well-paying jobs. This is not to be overlooked. But what matters most is that you become free women and men, each one of you in his or her own style—women and men capable of acknowledging what God expects from you and to do it. “You are God’s garden, you are God’s building.” You must strive to make the most of what you learn and receive to progress toward greater liberty—liberty from ignorance, and even more liberty from lies; liberty from the needs and worries of this life, but even more liberty from your own cravings, which should not rule you and rather stimulate you to go forward; liberty from social or economic dependency, but even more from narrow-mindedness and hardheartedness.
And you, dear Sisters, you teachers and educators who work within the framework of the schools of the Assumption, you too parents who were educated in these schools and remember those happy years with enough gratitude to have come on this pilgrimage, do not forget what St. Paul tells us and what St. Marie-Eugénie believed with all her soul and through her experience: “No one can lay other foundations than the one that already exist; and these foundations are Jesus Christ.…May St. Marie-Eugénie teach us fully and joyfully to live human lives regenerated in Jesus Christ.
Amen."

For full text of the homily, click HERE.
Thank you to the Assumption Sisters USA website for the texts.

The Latest MARIE EUGENIE Awardees

Ana Regina Valdes Lim, and Carmen "Pinky" Valdes being given their Marie Eugenie Awards by Sister Maria Emmanuel Melocoton, at the end of Youth Night. Truly well deserved, CONGRATULATIONS!

Sr. Maria Emmanuel: If the two of you did not get your Marie Eugenie Award when you graduated high school in the Philippines, now, in the international level, you will get your Marie Eugenie Award!

Ana, with sister Chona, and Pinky

YOUTH NIGHT

6:30 p.m., Sunday, June 3, 2007, Sala Nervi, Vatican City


EMCEES for Youth Night: Juliette Albert (France); Vina Francisco (Philippines/NY); Paula Hinojosa (Spain)

Pinky Valdes, Executive Producer of Youth Night, Ana Valdes-Lim, head of METTA and Director of YN, with English emcee Vina

For more YOUTH NIGHT pictures, click below.

Photobucket Album

Youth Night Team

MESSAGE FROM MOTHER GENERAL

Excerpts from the message of Sister Diana Wauters, Mother General of the Religious of the Assumption, at Youth Night:

It is with great joy that I welcome you, the youth of the Assumption world. Tonight is dedicated to you. We celebrate because you are St. Marie Eugenie's voice for the 21st century. It is you with your creativity and energy that will evolve St. Marie Eugenie's charism and make it real for your generation. We entrust this wonderful legacy to you. Take Saint Marie Eugenie's passion and hope and make your world a place for God's glory. There is nothing to be afraid of, you have a Saint at your side.

The Voice of Hope is our homage to Marie Eugenie. The Voice of Hope is a concert of nations. Let us rejoice in this moment of new beginnings that has been abundantly blessed with the rain of today.

VIVA MARIA EUGENIA!

SAINT BY OUR SIDE, SAINT MARIE EUGENIE

My God,
you have gone
before me to show me the way;
I will have you always
in my thoughts,
My heart will always love you,
my will always obey you.
At each moment
I will come back to you,
And it will be a loving return.
--Marie Eugenie, 1879