This year we have the joy of welcoming and meeting with the different groups of the SVD-SSpS Tertiate Course participants. Every year different Tertiate groups at different time come to Steyl, the Netherlands for a renewal course because Steyl is the place where St. Arnold Janssen started his three missionary congregations: the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) in 1875, the Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSpS) in 1889, and we, the cloistered nuns, the Sister-Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAP) in 1896. Their course includes going back to the roots and relieving the first beginnings of their congregations. After a few weeks, the groups go to Nemi Rome to continue and conclude their renewal course.
Having different tertiate groups each year is an experience we surely cherish. Through the group’s sharing of their missionary experiences and difficulties, we are encouraged likewise never to stop supporting them with our good works and prayers. In a way, as they are renewed in their own calling, through their visit to us, we, too, are renewed in our own.
May God bless them always, and may He make all their missionary works and efforts fruitful for the Church, for those whom they minister to, and for themselves. And as St. Arnold Janssen so often prayed: May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the light of the Word and the Spirit of grace, and may the Heart of Jesus live in our hearts and in every heart.
