Today the Universal Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven. Our Mother has gone ahead to prepare the way for us. Just like a good Mother! A Mother awaits her children in heavenly glory knowing well that it is not merely a passive waiting but an active waiting since she does everything that in her power to help us on our way.

Father Giovani has always fostered a great love for our Heavenly Mother in our little community. In fact, the Missionary Servants of the Poor like to invoke Mary as “Mother of the Poor” whose complete title would be “Holy Mary Mother of the Poor.” But we could wonder, why such an invocation? The answer is simple. Not only do we like to call her that, because of the love and special attention we profess towards the many poor people we serve, but also because we consider ourselves the first poor who need the help of the Mother of Heaven.

One frequently hears Catholics speak of a serious crisis in the Church. But perhaps, and it’s our humble opinion, the basis of this crisis is that we have lost the tender and beautiful devotion to our Heavenly Mother. If we really consider ourselves the smallest and open our hearts like Saint Juan Diego in 1531 when the Virgin would greet him as “the smallest of her children,” we will be convinced that the only way of changing the world is in changing ourselves. In the words of Tescelin de Fontaine (father of the great Saint Bernard), “The soul of all reform is the reform of our own soul.”

Holy Mary Mother of the Poor, pray for us.