“My life was abandoned from the time I joined the congregation”

“You must begin to fight against your own violence”

Sr Paul-Hélène Saint-Raymond

With those sentences pronounced by Sister Paul-Hélène, the silence enveloping the loss of so many women and men who have given their life for the cause of the Gospel is again united today with the silence of Peace and Communion of the Holy Martyrs.  Our brothers and sisters, who have gone before us in the faith, have passed along a difficult path of persecutions and of escapes, so as to live in the service of the Word and die as a witness: their testimony is that strength which transcends time.

Our memory proclaims the life, the mission and the death of many persons who have courageously done their best in an ordinary life, offering simple gestures in the service of human dignity.

A seed thrown on to Mother Earth, plunged in dampness and gratitude, begins silently and mysteriously to develop and to explode… and then an extraordinary, inexplicable and indescribable force, gives life to the depths of the earth …  The blood of the martyrs, fallen on the dry earth, moistens and soaks the life of so many persons who have shared their testimonies, their courage in life through many liberations.

To celebrate our martyrs of the Assumption family is to leave the latent memory of those simple people who, in their ordinary daily life, were living what was extraordinary in the faith; “To lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John, 15:13)