21 Oct Meeting of the Teachers, the ACI Family and the Sisters in celebration of the Centenary of St Raphaela Mary’s Death
The September 28th has marked out to be an unforgettable day for the Province of Japan. On that day, the meeting was held in the University, Gotanda, where all the teachers and professors gathered together with the full-time office staff of Seisen educational centers. This sort of meeting is usually held once every four years, but it turned out to be something special this year, as, because of the Year of St Raphaela Mary, many ACI Family members and Sisters of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart also participated. In addition, Srs Rosario Fernández-Villarán, Inés Oleaga y Marcela Sáenz attended this meeting while they were visiting this province.
In fact, this event was participated by 350 people. First of all, the Seisen School song was sung together, to be followed by Sr. Rosario’s talk on the theme of “St. Raphaela Mary for Me”. She began to say, “We can talk about St. Raphaela Mary whom we understand wholly as a woman deeply in love with Jesus Christ”. After explaining how the saint used to live in the initial years of the institute and in the final time at Rome, she spoke about what the saint’s life meant to the educators of Seisen. Then, each school and university made a presentation by power point or by video, in association with the achieved activities related to the Year of Raphaela Mary. At lunch time we all enjoyed eating the delicious “obento” (meaning a lunch box), being seated in the groups consisting of the participants of different schools and universities. This offered us an opportunity to get to know each other and share the impressions and commentaries over the talk of Sr Rosario.
In the afternoon we watched the two films, both of which gained the second place in the film contests of long category and short category organized on our institute level. The one on the long category was produced by a teacher of the high school in Nagano, while the other short one was made by another teacher of the same high school, too. At the end of this performance, the two winners were rewarded and greeted personally by Sr Rosario.
After enjoying listening to the concert performed by the choir of the Seisen International students, we listened to the performances by the cellist who is an ex-student of Seisen Elementary School, by the pianist who is an ex-student of Seisen High School in Nagano, and by La Pura Fuente, the choir of ex-students of Seisen High School in Ofuna. This concert turned out to be really beautiful, especially featureed by their high quality.
The meeting was over with the hymn of St. Raphaela Mary, which we all sang together with our hearts deeply moved. We felt that we were very closely united as a Seisen Family and enjoyed belonging to the same family.
We celebrate the 90th anniversary of the first arrival of the Handmaids this year in the Province of Japan. The September 28 Meeting was one of the fruits, of which the seeds the Handmaids had planted together with many other teachers and friends. We all hope that, like the tree presented by the symbol of the Year of St. Raphaela Mary, the tree of St. Raphaela Mary may grow rich, and continue giving abundant fruits in Japan.
