259 Today, as we renew our vows, standing in humility before the Lord, let us repeat after Mary: “Behold, I am Your servant. May it be done to me according to Your word.” Let us state this on behalf of our entire community: “Behold, we are Your servants. May it be done to us according to Your word.” Let these words express our desire and our readiness to fulfi ll, both personally and as a Congregation, the Divine plan for this very special moment in our history—our Founder’s beatifi cation and our present Jubilee. Dear Confreres: May our conscious uttering of those words become the demonstration of our readiness to give God everything that He may ask of us: changing our lifestyle, giving up our plans and visions, abandoning human securities in order to carry the cross. Yes, it may be painful, it may entail a struggle, but life, joy and peace will be ours when we fulfi ll the will of God and follow Jesus Christ. Nothing is a better reward than God Himself. The mystery of the Immaculate Conception gives us a key to understanding the life and work of our two Fathers: Blessed Stanislaus and Blessed George. They both let themselves be taken in by the newness of life in Christ, the fullest example of which we see in Mary Immaculate. Neither Blessed Stanislaus nor Blessed George wished to do his work for its own sake. They had one goal in their lives: to be united with God and to spread His kingdom. They discovered their calling to specifi c actions as their lives unfolded, as a fruit of the grace of God acting within them. Their total dedication to the Holy Spirit and permission to guide their lives brought fruits in concrete actions of fulfi lling the will of God and accomplishing things which God had planned. At the same time, neither of them thought that he was doing some grand work, which was worthy of God’s special gratitude or reward. Living in union with God and doing His work is a reward in itself. In their lives, only God was to be surrounded by praise, not them. We refl ect on the challenges that face us at this point in our history. Today’s Solemnity and the witness of the lives of our Blessed Fathers suggest that our most important and primary task is our conversion or opening our hearts to a new life in Jesus Christ, the example of which we see in Mary Immaculate. All of the saints of the Church, along with our Blessed Fathers, also gave witness to it. A new life in Christ enables us to accomplish new works or good deeds, which God has been planned for us to carry out from before time began. Our deep roots in the life of God will allow us to discern His every call, while He continuously gives us courage and magnanimity to fulfi ll His will. Let us be less concerned with the future of the Congregation and the success of our enterprises and put more effort into pleasing God, because then God will fulfi ll through us the work He has already planned.
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