We’ve just had Holy Mass this morning with our Auxilliary Bishop Everhard de Jong as main celebrant, concelebrated by Dean Fr. Jos Spee and our parish priest Fr. John Dautzenberg, gratefully commemorating our Congregation’s 100th year service of perpetual adoration. On November 6, 1915, the Diocesan Bishop of Roermond, Msgr. L. J. H. A. Schrijnen, gave our Sisters permission for perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament by day and by night, without restriction, for all future time. On November 8, 1915, they solemnly began perpetual adoration. Since then, up to the present, we have kept this service with love and devotion. But we are aware that the number of Sisters in our Congregation is diminishing due to old age and also due to lack of vocations. Even then, despite aging and ailing Sisters, we still try to keep our daily adoration. Communities with less than 15 active members engage more the help of lay people. With their help and thanks to their help, we could continue our service to the Church. Somehow the Lord of the harvest provides still some of our houses, especially in Asia, with young women who wish to join us and share our way of life. We wish them perseverance, and joy and peace in the service of our Lord.
We thank God for our calling to pray and to make sacrifices for the salvation of souls. We thank God for the privilege of adoring him day and night before his real presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, and we thank him equally for the responsibility that goes with our calling, which we freely takes up on our shoulders and in our hearts . May all find blessing through us. May all the prayers said in our chapel and in all our houses through all these years be pleasing to God and rise up to his throne as fragrant incense; and may God reward all those who have helped us through the years and those who have prayed with us and have accompanied us with their prayers. God alone is their reward!
