Question: What does it mean to you to be re-elected?
Answer: To embrace in faith God’s plan for my life and for our congregation. God has put his confidence in me and wants me to let him be the one to work with our religious family as he wishes and when he wishes according to his loving plans. It means being open to his inspirations so that our congregation may continue to be yeast, salt, and light in the midst of all the discouragement, unhappiness, and darkness in which the world of today is living, in order that we may continue to hear God crying out to us among the poor and the most needy of our time.
Q.- The 11th Ordinary General Chapter just concluded in Los Teques, Miranda, had as its theme: “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth” (Is 43:19). What do you consider most worthy of note in the message of this chapter?
A.- Surely our theme pointed out for us the entire itinerary of preparation for our 11th General Chapter, which we have tried to live out with enthusiasm, fervor, and hope, with generous and open dedication. Out of this central focal point that the prophet Isaiah offers us, we have come to the official opening of this new Pentecost for our religious family. In this atmosphere of readiness on the part of the chapter assembly, we dedicated ourselves to the progress of the chapter with the conviction that the power of God was enveloping and guiding us, filling the chapter with his gifts and empowering its fruitfulness, which we know is already growing and flourishing. Opening ourselves to this Truth, ever ancient and ever new, as our Father Saint Augustine says, disposes us to look with hope to the future, which we place in God’s hands, so that at every moment we may act in accord with his heart, taking upon ourselves what needs to be transformed in the light of our present situation as we face the challenges of the Church of today, which demand reflection and dialogue, and assuming the attitudes that generate light and vitality, in order to continue recreating the charism of our congregation.
Mission to Girls, Young People, and the Elderly
Q.- What can you tell us about the homes that you take care of?
A.- We manage homes for small and teenage girls and for elderly women and men. With regard to our homes for young and teenage girls, we want our houses to be truly welcoming homes where the girls receive an integrated formation that helps them to develop their personality and to become healthy, cultured, and critical adults, capable of living together in society, sharing in awareness and solidarity their formation, which emphasizes all the values that the Catholic youth of today need to exemplify in their lives.
Our purpose is to be faithful to the charism that God inspired in our founders, to direct all those who unite with our cause to offer their service with “tenderness and efficacy,” based on personal communication and healthy affectivity, as in a family where they must fulfill the role of father and mother.
Our plan seeks to maintain and keep up to date our own proper style of formation in our homes, striving to preserve our roots and give witness to God’s fidelity in our mission, aspiring to fulfill the dream of holiness embraced by our founders, Bishop López Aveledo and Blessed María of Saint Joseph, a dream that harvests the fruit of humanization in the place where we live in this time of globalization, a new solidarity capable of promoting a culture of peace.
With regard to our homes for elderly men and women, these are the main focal point out of which our mission operates: to be centers of health for the benefit of our older adults, opening our eyes and recognizing Jesus in those cast aside in our society and being for them a help in their pain and sorrow, a support in their weakness, a listening ear in their loneliness, a help in their infirmity, an attentive support in their disability, and a sign of hope in the progressive and unavoidable deterioration of their physical condition.
Since we are consecrated women who follow Jesus Christ, we feel responsible for the building of the Kingdom and committed to offering our energy, our work, our service, our sacrifice, and our efforts to make this a reality among the most disadvantaged elderly men and women of our society. Wherever there is an abandoned old man or woman, there is an Augustinian Recollect Sister ready to give her life in service, because we make our own the sentiments of our mother foundress: “Those cast aside by everyone, those whom no one wants to accept, those are ours.”
Community and Testimony of Life
Q.- What is the nature and purpose of your congregation’s lay association?
A.- It is a community of lay people who want to become a spiritual family, joined together by the bonds of fraternity, who, in fidelity to their commitment to the Christian life, help to build the Kingdom of God by promoting the values of the Gospel and by living the spirituality of the Congregation of the Augustinnian Recollect Sisters of the Heart of Jesus through the witness of their own lives. The purpose of this community is to bring about the unity of minds and hearts directed toward God, integrating in their lives the spiritual and the human and obeying the voice of God who says, “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pt 1:16), as a way of life.
Mother María, the First Beatified Venezuelan
Q.- Mother María of Saint Joseph is the first Venezuelan to be beatified. Is there much devotion to her? What is still lacking for her to be canonized?
A.- Thanks be to God, the Shrine of Mother María of Saint Joseph has become a true center of spirituality. Since her beatification, our Venezuelan people, as well as many from far-away places, constantly make pilgrimages to visit her, pray to God through her mediation, and ask her to intercede for their needs and grant them divine favors. In order for her to be canonized, in accord with the laws of the Church, there will have to be another miracle.
Q.- What can your congregaton offer to Venezuelan society today?
A.- The joyful, silent, self-sacrificing witness of every Augustinian Recollect Sister of the Heart of Jesus amidst the poor and the most disadvantaged at the present moment of our history. To be a sign of hope and of welcome. To open wide spaces for the common good in the midst of a hedonistic and individualististic society. To be announers of the values of the Kingdom.
Biographical Sketch of Mother Marelis
Personal data:
• Born: March 9, 1964.
• First profession: August 28, 1986.
• Perpetual profession: September 9, 1992.
• Higher education: Bachelor’s degree in education, with highest honors.
• Licentiate degree in integral education.
Assignments:
• Los Teques, Miranda, Venezuela, classroom teacher.
• Maracay, Aragua, Veneuela, classroom teacher.
• Barquisimeto, Lara, Venezuela, coordinator of primary education.
• Caracas, Venezuela, superior of the religious community and principal of Divina Pastora School.
• Los Teques, Miranda, Venezuela, mistress of novices
• Los Teques, Miranda, Venezuela, superior general for the term 2008-2014.
Augustinian Recollect Family
The Congregaton of the Augustinian Recollect Sisters of the Heart of Jesus was founded in Maracay, Venezuela, by Bishop Justo Vicente López (1863-1917), known as the “Apostle of Charity,” and Blessed María of Saint Joseph (1875-1967), the first Venezuelan to be beatified. The Mother Foundress often repeated to her religious: ” Those cast aside by everyone, those whom no one wants to accept, those are ours.” The spirituality of the Congregation is rooted in evangelical charity and Eucharistic life, with all that that signifies in relation to God, to our neighbor, and to our mission. The Augustinian Recollect Sisters of the Heart of Jesus form part of the Augustinian Recollect Family.