Libretto della Celebrazione - Vaticano

in maturing. The Christian life of the people blossomed again as if by
magic.
The new Franciscan Congregation also grew in number and two
filial houses were founded in Sant Ana and Canoa. Very soon after
however, the missionary work of Mother Mary Bernard was marked
by the mystery of the Cross. Many indeed were the sufferings to
which she and her daughters were submitted: absolute poverty,
torrid heat, uncertainty and difficulties of every kind, risks to their
health and security of their lives, misunderstanding on the part of
ecclesiastical authorities and, besides, the separation of some Sisters
from the community, establishing themselves later as an autonomous
congregation (the Franciscans of the Immaculate: Blessed
Charity Brader). Mary Bernard underwent all this with heroic
fortitude and in silence without defending herself or nourishing
resentment towards anyone, but forgiving them from her heart and
praying for those who made her suffer.
As if all these trials were not enough, a violent persecution in 1895,
begun by forces hostile to the Church, obliged Sr. Mary Bernard and
her Sisters to flee from Ecuador. Without knowing where to go, she
went, with 14 Sisters, towards Bahia, from where she continued
towards Colombia.
The group was still wandering when it received an invitation from
Msgr. Eugene Biffi to work in his Diocese of Cartagena. So, on the 2 nd
of August 1895, the feast of the Porziuncola of Assisi, the Foundress
and her Sisters, exiled from Ecuador, reached Cartagena, and were
received paternally by the Bishop. They found hospitality in a female
hospital, commonly called a “Pious Work”. The Lord had led her by
the hand towards that asylum, where Mother Mary Bernard would
remain to the end of her life. After the house in Cartagena, the
Foundation was extended not only in Columbia but also in Austria
and Brasil.
With a compassionate heart, authentically franciscan, she engaged
above all in relieving the spiritual and material needs of the
poor, whom she always considered to be her favourites. She used to
say to the Sisters: “Open your houses to help the poor and
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