General House
DEAR NOVICES, FORMATORS AND
THE SISTERS OF THE NOVITIATE COMMUNITY
On this day as you fervently celebrate your Patron Saint, St Stanislaus Kostka, I come to greet each one of you, wherever you are, in order to wish you a Happy Feast Day, a day filled with the joy of being, like Saint Stanislaus, someone who is moving forward on a path to holiness.
Pope Francis, in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, proposes to us “a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel“. Marie Rivier invites us to “be an open Gospel where everyone can read Jesus Christ“. And Saint Stanislaus suggests that we live each day “for Christ” by offering us these three questions to reflect on. They are good advice for all of us, advice that will help us to advance on the path of holiness that is ours.
Again in his encyclical, Pope Francis writes: Together: here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. We need a community that 
supports and helps us, one in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together…#8 Marie Rivier, at the very beginning of our Congregation, dared to dream with her first companions: “Let us come together and teach school!” Still today, the “Let us come together” of Marie Rivier finds an echo in the lives and in the dreams of her daughters: We are together to help each other grow, day by day, in the holiness of our vocation. C6 Thank you for continuing your fervent prayer for our great dream of the canonization of Marie Rivier.
On this your Feast Day, may this joy of being together, of being daughters of Blessed Marie Rivier moving forward on the road to holiness, burst forth in your hearts and in your communities. Yes, it is in this school of happiness that is the Novitiate that you learn in Jesus Christ to walk in the presence of God and to nourish yourselves with the bread of his divine will. C124 This is the secret of true joy, the joy that no one can ever take away from you. Jn 16:22
On November 21st, with the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, we will open a whole Year of Thanksgiving! I encourage you to live this time with a heart filled with gratitude for God’s action in your lives, for his call to follow in the footsteps of Marie Rivier at the Presentation of Mary and for this Congregation, with all its sacred history, that has welcomed you. Yes, together, with and like the Virgin Mary, let us live in thanksgiving and in the ever-renewed joy of her Magnificat because the Lord has done wonders for us. Holy is his name! C49, Lk 1: 49
GIVING THANKS that I am your sister and your mother in Marie Rivier,
Mother Maria dos Anjos Alves, pm
Superior General
