Daughter of Our Lady of the Garden

Daughter of Our Lady of the Garden –  Sister María Angélica Crescencia, F.M.H.
“Sister Sweetness”
 “Congregatio Filarum Mariae Sanctissimae ab Horto”  ( Latin )
“Figlie di Maria Sanctissima dell’Orto”  (  Italian )
“Ave Gratia Plena”

Founder:  Saint Anthony Mary Gianelli  (eloquent Preacher, Bishop, and Apostle of Charity )                        *affectionally called “The Son of Prayer”

Co-Foundress:  Caterina Podestà 

Place:  Chiavari, Italy  (near Genoa)

Year:  January 12, 1829 A.D.

Her Charism:  Imitating Jesus as a Daughter of Mary, this consecrated woman is called to a greater love.  Born out of this passionate love she has for children is her charity which is wide-awake and both open and available to the sick poor.  She is attentive to the needs of the times in creative fidelity to the founding charism of vigilant evangelical charity. Her service of charity is expressed in self-giving and selflessness. It is her way of life which is sustained by contemplation, community prayer, personal prayer, and the Eucharist. In sisterly communion, she joyfully takes up the challenge of becoming everything to everyone with a commitment which knows no limit. This Sister’s spirituality is Christocentric, Marian, and Missionary in character. Like Christ, the vigilant Shepherd Who passed through this world doing good, she is aware that she must never stop doing good for her brothers and sisters until death. Mary is the charismatic power which illuminates her Community’s life and her apostolic zeal.. Our Lady of the Garden is her Mother, Model, and Mediatrix of all grace. Mary is a copy of God’s love; she is the real image of divine goodness and wants to help her (and all of us) without majestic grandeur and awesome justice. Following in the footsteps of her founder, a man of courageous faith and a tireless missionary, she ventures beyond every boundary, serving her brothers and sisters afflicted by old and new forms of poverty and entrusting her work to “the craftsman of Nazareth.” This Sister does not remain in the balance and is detached, but approaches, bends down, and touches the hand of those in need. Attentive to the world in an evangelical sense, she goes out to the peripheries as a teacher and catechist in schools, and as a servant to the sick in hospitals and nursing homes because it is there she witnesses God. This Sister is a Hortus Conclusus – an “enclosed garden.” In that garden she cultivates flowers of humility, sweetness, happiness, joy, prudence, charity, and love of God for the sake of the Kingdom. After all, charity is the passport to Heaven.

“Oh, Virgin of the Garden, chaste, pure, and beautiful, Who cultivates flowers of fine essence: roses of love, red; and humble violets; lilies white as snow that invite the angels. For Your whiteness we wait. Amen”