SAYING OF OUR MOTHER FOUNDRESS

1. 1. Every step of my life God has led and I have followed
   2. Make every action a prayer
   3. Your life and action all through the day should reflect God’s presence in you
   4. Only prayers can win the favours I want
   5. If we wish to learn to live with Jesus and at the same time to work for Jesus, His Mother must be our model and our guide
   6. Close union and constant recourse to our Lord will help you
   7. I am more than ever convinced that we must lead altogether supernatural lives if we really want to make true Christians of the women and girls
   8. To desire only to please God, to fear only to disappoint Him, means perfect peace
   9. Only the best is good enough for God no matter the inconveniences
   10. God knows all the needs of His Children in Africa and he loves them infinitely more than I do
   11. Be docile to thine Unseen Guide, Love Him as he loves thee: time and obedience are enough and thou a Saint shall be
   12. No man ever guarded and cherished and cared for the woman he loved, as he will cherish and watch over you if you live only for Him and abandon yourself with perfect trust to His care
   13. God works in a special way through those consecrated and united to Him
   14. It matters much more what we are than what we teach. We do not want good secular teachers or clever nurses, but spiritually-minded Religious who are nervously prepared to refuse God nothing if only they are allowed to win souls for him
   15. Others will look up to you for guidance and if anyone else feels the way you do, you will be able to guide and direct them
   16. They are children to be taught and trained in the love of God, for the purpose for which life was given – to love God and neighbour – to live as children of God
   17. There are souls to be saved, pagans bring to the knowledge of God, the few who had a little knowledge of God, need to be helped to deepen it
   18. If the caritas Christi has really gripped the soul, its urging to Apostolic Labours will at once be felt
   19. We have an enormous opportunity of guiding and forming the character of the young generation and so of determining the form of civilization that is coming so quickly to them
   20. There is much good in the girls but we shall need to go very slowly and to lay deep foundation
   21. We want each child to keep true to God all through life’s allurements, dangers and sorrows
   22. For this we must know the weak point in each one’s character; teach her t know it herself, and win her to the desire of self-conquest
   23. I cannot take back the consecration I have made of my life to the Missions
   24. I love the people old and young. Human nature is the same everywhere and kindness opens the heart of all.
   25. I have often wondered what was the special gift that God had given me that had brought success to my work apart from the fact that it is His will to bless it, I think it is, that He has given me the power to see the easiest and simplest way of doing things
   26. Pray for one another, help one another and intensify your spirit of service and sacrifice wherever you are and in whatever you do
   27. I must leave all to God and wait and pray
   28. We certainly do not understand what God is doing, but he knows. “Be still and know that I am God” this is my greatest source of help
   29. Our share in His shame and humiliation will generally be looking foolish and feeling foolish in the little things of daily life
   30. The cure for all pain arising either from self-consciousness or nervousness is the remembrance of the presence of God
   31. No one can do enough for God
   32. All our works of Charity and zeal have for their ultimate object, the drawing of souls to God
   33. I am confident that God will give me the necessary help and grace to carry on
   34. One of the most striking things about my girls is that they are so business-like and capable all-round
   35. They(my girls) have intelligence and use it. A girl of 15 years can control a catechism class of 100 women and really teach them
   36. Work for the poor brings with it much consolation though at times, disillusionment and weariness
   37. I had to pray earnestly to God, that if this work is for Him and is to continue after my death, He has to inspire Nigerians Girls to the religious life
   38. One can only say “God knows all”
   39. I worked as I was directed
   40. At every stage of His public ministry, Jesus started with a serious prayer to His father, so that all he did would be His father’s Holy Will
   41. True politeness and true charity both consist in trying to put people at their ease, and in sparing inconveniences, discomfort or pain
   42. Fierce the wild tempest, Dark was the night, Oars laboured heavily, Foam glimmered white, trembled the mariners, Peril was nigh, when said the God of gods “Peace it is I”
   43. Ridge the mountain wave lower thy crest, wail of Euroclidon be thou at rest. Danger can never be, succor is nigh when says the Lord of lords ‘Peace it is I”
   44. Jesus, Deliverer, come thou to me. Sooth thou my voyaging over life’s sea thou when the storm of death roars sweeping by, Whisper, O Truth, of Truth “Peace it is I”
   45. And Thou wilt to my darkness surely bring all that I need – for my extremity Gives to thy love its opportunity
   46. And so I await thy Coming O my King
   47. My soul’s dark night in quietness shall wait The breaking of thy dawn Compassionate
   48. There is such a huge work for god and for souls opening before us; on the other hand satan is of course using every effort to hinder progress and we need to out-wit him with God’s grace
   49. All who share in Apostolic work must in their degree fill up in themselves those things which are wanting to the suffering of Christ
   50. A certain amount of suffering there must be, it is the price of the true success of the work, “the filling up of those things that are wanting to the passion of Christ”
   51. But all these misunderstandings and sorrows are part of the price for souls. Nothing matters but souls.
   52. I faced the fact that by doing what I believe God asks of me, I shall lose most of my friends
   53. How can the ideals of Christian womanhood grow up in the heart of a girl who has seen nothing to create those ideals
   54. To build up a truly Christian Church we depend on the children and in particular on the girls – the mothers of the coming generation
   55. May our Lord help you and not allow what awaits you to be too difficult
   56. It is better to have no workers than the wrong-kind
   57. The darkest hour is before dawn
   58. Penance and mortification is not only for religious but also for all Christians
   59. I never pray for anything for myself, but I have asked our Lord to enable me to carry on the work until I am not needed, I am quite sure that He will do this – then he can take me or leave me or do whatever he likes.
   60. It is one of my great temptations to do the work myself as I could do it better and quicker, but I have realized from the beginning the necessity of never doing what I can get a native to do and I have trained them to bear responsibility
   61. Children keep happy; work hard, be your Sister’s keeper in the loving fatherly care of God and His Blessed Mother.
   62. Our Lord sees everything. You will be rewarded by Him. I want you to get your reward from our Lord
   63. I am perfectly satisfied that things are arranged as God wills
   64. Your success will depend on your ready acceptance of the will of God in every event.
   65. To be able to hear the voice of our Lord, listening to Him attentively in prayer, you need silence and recollection
   66. You also should accept every order and appointment with the same expression of our Lady. Behold the Handmaid of the Lord
   67. Surely your work here, will be one of the chief objects of my prayer, I shall try to help to water, what I have been allowed to sow
   68. Lord, thy will be done, not mine
   69. He began everything with prayer and ended with a prayer of thanksgiving for having fulfilled that particular will of his father
   70. Inspite of the devil’s opposition, the work is keenly absorbing; in fact that opposition only arouses new zeal
   71. It was always His father’s will, not His own
   72. And because he had this father’s will always in mind, that made it easier for him to meet every situation
   73. May the dear King from this throne (crucifix) bless all the country
   74. Mary shared every suffering of our Lord with him with her in your life, you will find nothing difficult in following her Son
   75. Our Lord’s own Penance and mortification was detachment
   76. Have special devotion to the passion of our Lord which will be your strength and courage in your service of God
   77. But God keeps things in his own hands and hidden
   78. God is certainly helping our efforts eventhough we often seem to be stumbling blindly in the dark
   79. I am perfectly satisfied that things are arranged as God wills
   80. In heaven we shall all understand each other’s motives and actions
   81. And love is the answer
   82. Love one another, pray together, help one another, work together. We do not go to heaven alone
   83. God can do all things
   84. God can smooth things out and repair injuries done in ways we cannot think of
   85. Be your Sister’s keeper
   86. I go-a-fishing. Let us lunch into the deep
   87. They (the girls) are leaving us to Anua to form another branch of the family, for the honour and glory of God and for the spread of the gospel
   88. It is a critical time of extra-ordinary opportunities and with corresponding difficulties; if we lose our chances they may not be offered again
   89. You cannot give to people what you haven’t got
   90. The soul is like a lake fed by hidden springs, the surface remaining still and unruffled
   91. The springs are: the thought of God, His love, Providence and Power and the realization of our own creature-hood
   92. It is only in prayer that the type of union with our Lord you aspire to can be reached
   93. Only prayers can win the favours i want… PRAY, PRAY, PRAY
   94. Prayer can do all things, and there is a very possible way for all difficulties to be done away with
   95. I find that light and help come just at each step when they are actually needed and not a bit sooner
   96. It is only the Spirit that can speak to the Spirit
   97. Amid the songs of Angels Mary is listening for the whispered prayer of the least of her children
   98. Pray, pray, pray, the work of God must be done at all cost, no matter the inconveniences
   99. Our Lady is to be your inseparable companion
   100. The children of Mary’s solidarity differs from our other solidarities. A high standard of goodness is required… a fountain of zeal
   101. If you are a child of Mary, you must imitate your mother in every way. She was humble, obedient, faithful to her work, trustworthy
   102. Show special love to children who are the future of the Church in Africa
   103. You have all my prayers
   104. Mary went into the home of Elizabeth, she offered the usual loving greetings, and her days passed in ordinary and simple actions, yet at her presence a mighty tide of grace broke upon the inmates of that home.
   105. If you stood before our Holy father you would not give much thought to the presence of his Noble Guard
   106. You will need to visit Him often in the blessed sacrament
   107. It is lonely without the blessed sacrament
   108. The Holy Eucharist is the food of our souls. It helps the soul to live just a material food helps the body to live
   109. At Holy Communion ask for courage and faith to meet any event, especially that her accepts the offering of your poor self and to help you overcome all those things that could be a hindrance and to acquire those virtues that you need for perseverance
   110. I have great devotion to Divine Providence and i say the litany several times in the day when difficulties come
   111. All my trust is in the sacred Heart… Divine Providence ever conformable to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Have mercy on us
   112. Praise be to Divine Providence ever conformable to the Sacred heart of Jesus
   113. The letters – IHS on the small hosts stand for “Jesus Christ conquers ,” in Greek
   114. Well, it all depends on the Sacred Heart!
   115. I trust in the Sacred Heart, and I will trust
   116. The children are beginning a Novena of Novenas, eighty-one days prayer, to the Sacred Heart for the gift.. to build the Church- the Church of the Sacred Heart
   117. Do not expect letters from me nor do I expect any from you, but we shall remain united in the Sacred heart of Jesus
   118. The blood of Christ surges within you
   119. Well, God can do all things and it is all for Him and the souls he loves
   120. MAKE EVERY ACTION A PRAYER! So that all you do and say will be blessed by Him
   121. Every missionary must be prepared to turn her hands to many works besides the actual one which is her special strong point
   122. The kingdom of God lies in your hands this day. It is through your behaviour that He will extend His kingdom
   123. I feel confident that Divine Providence will always let me have enough to go on
   124. I will go ahead as long as I can trusting in Divine Providence
   125. Today God sends this gift in His Sweet Providence. I want my native Sisters to be called Sisters of Divine Providence
   126. God will provide when time comes
   127. His “COME FOLLOW ME”, means, do as I did, without counting the cost
   128. Our Divine Lord’s call takes many different forms. What He looks for, from us is that will which leads us to go because he calls
   129. God is perfect and to see Him and live with Him after death, one must be as perfect as He is
   130. It is in prayer that you will find God and His will
   131. Go to the Chapel and tell Our Lord
   132. It is very important that you study His Life and Work in the New Testament
   133. The Holy mass, is the greatest meeting point with our Lord
   134. It is at the Holy mass that you have real personal contact with Him, when you receive Him in Holy Communion and renew your love, and ask him for what you need for yourself and for all those you serve, for His sake
   135. Neither affection nor familiarity can do away with the necessity for certain reverent reserve in conversation and in manner
   136. The truth is that you yourself change and no one can say what form the change will take
   137. Personal private prayer cultivated, will be your guide
   138. I shall pray much for you and all the workers and the work
   139. Penance and mortification, is not only for religious but for all Christians. Penance and Mortifications strengthen one’s character
   140. Visit and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a must for a religious and an opportunity to advance in her relationship with our Lord
   141. Pray to Him, especially, the PRAYER FOR GENEROSITY, that’s what you will need most in the life of love and service of your people
   142. God calls some to religion early in life, others later
   143. With the giving of yourself, your heart, your mind and will, you will give up also any other material things
   144. I need companions, I need co-workers, so send them, if You want the work to go on
   145. Having given yourself (to God) you need to intensify your prayers and your offerings
   146. Intensify your spirit of service and sacrifice in whatever you do
   147. Examine carefully if you think you love Him sufficiently enough, to be able to make that sacrifice
   148. You must live as children of the same parents being kind and generous to each other
   149. To really know that we love God is shown in the love and care we have for one another
   150. Take notice of your Sister and tell her if you notice anything that is not right about her
   151. He loves the trust that He Himself has inspired
   152. Where Jesus is, there also is Mary, so, too in heaven, her place shall ever be close to her Divine Son
   153. By our vow of chastity, you will live, even in this place of exile, as angels live in heaven. You will enjoy the beatitude promised to pure hearts, that of seeing God and enjoying His sweetness in communion and prayer
   154. Poverty will prevent you ever again being independent owner of anything, and you must use according to the direction of superiors what is entrusted to you for yourself or for your work
   155. You cannot give away an orange tree and continue to pick its fruits
   156. We claim nothing as our own even if the good comes to us from any service or in any form
   157. Obedience is the most essential of the religious vows. Through it every action of ours is brought in conformity with the will of God
   158. Anybody under whom you are working, you have to obey
   159. You have to obey them because they are God’s representatives for you, as long as you are under them
   160. Eventhough we have nothing, we do not waste. Our Lord gave us example when He fed the five thousand and asked the apostles to “gather up the fragments”
   161. Our Rule bids us ever remember that from the interior power must flow to the exterior, enabling us to attain our end
   162. The care for girls..will for some years, be the most important work for Sisters in this Country
   163. It is only prayers that is keeping the work going and I pray daily for you and the Congregation
   164. Even in our mistakes he does not allow to do injury
   165. The hope of the Church here lies in these children. If we can protect them for a few years, they will give the shelter of truly Christian homes to the little girls of the next generation
   166. It is in the school that we must get a hold on the children and bring them the influence of grace
   167. Those who form the character of the children, form the character of the nation
   168. …i want to take hold of great multitude of our girls and around them in the elements of Christianity and civilized womanhood
   169. No work is of greater importance for God’s glory than the education of the young
   170. The working classes are the bulk of the nation, and it is their children who are given into our hands either in primary or in secondary schools
   171. I have therefore adopted the Montessori System and have unbounded confidence in it
   172. The first great need in a girls’ school is to train the girls in self-control, cleanliness, self-respect, earnestness and reliability
   173. Earnestness and reliability are the outcome of the gradual growth of self-control, of self-respect, will-power and the power of concentration
   174. Our characteristic of all our schools is that the children, while perfectly respectful to the Sisters, are completely at their ease with them
   175. God works in a special way through those consecrated and united to Him
   176. Be constant in training children in what is right, what will help them to be good citizens of their nation, to be good Christians, God fearing, God loving, at all times
   177. Nursing here as elsewhere, our first care is for souls of those brought within our influence
   178. Teach them(the children) to speak the truth, to be honest in speech and behaviour, even if they have to suffer for it
   179. For a sense of responsibility to develop, there must be actual responsibility, small at first but increasing to matters of importance
   180. If you idle away your time now- what are you going to do in eternity
   181. I have all of you to help and that is why I am urging you to be good children, love God and one another, so that love of him and one another will help you to be ready to go out to love and serve others
   182. Love one another, where there is love, there God abides
   183. Work together in mutual help
   184. Every teacher is a Catechist and an Apostle
   185. I trust in the Lord who has always helped me in the past
   186. The answer to prayers will come in God’s own time, but come it will, I am sure
   187. The church grows through making adult converts, and in some cases these prove satisfactory, but it is only on those who have been trained to Christian habits of virtue from childhood that a really vigorous and lasting Native Church can be built
   188. Work grows and grows. How it gets done i do not know, the Angels must help
   189. Solid Christian teaching can be given only in a truly Christian home, by a Christian mother
   190. The thing that impresses me most is that we are in a vast continent which is developing at an extraordinary rate. What has come to us slowly in the course of centuries is coming to them in a few years
   191. …this would make no difference to those who are working here now, but the church will be here when we are gone and it will make all the difference in the world to those who come after us
   192. I love every inch of the ground and everyone in it, i love and respect them
   193. Make the saying of the Rosary your special devotion it is the mysteries of the Rosary that the part Mary played in the life and work of our Lord, is contained
   194. Our lady should be your first Patron Saint because Jesus cannot be found without His mother
   195. The lesson to be learnt here, is one that takes a long, long time to learn. We go to prayer to please God, not to please ourselves
   196. Your prayers are my greatest support
   197. Our great want is prayers. Prayer alone can do the work that has to be done
   198. It is in God’s hands, PRAY, PRAY, PRAY, the work of God must be done at all cost
   199. I must put all personal feelings aside now, and only consider the work for souls
   200. God has given me the grace to fit into the culture and people and so I am sent by them
   201. I think that common sense and love of souls are the most important characteristics
   202. The people themselves often fully appreciate the faith which lies behind our service of them
   203. My life and daily prayer is that God inspires some of you with a call to the religious life, so that when I am gone, His work would continue
   204. We can never really understand the Native mind as they themselves do, nor can we have the same influence on the masses of people
   205. ‘my hope has always been to have many convents of native Sisters scattered throughout the country
   206. Constantly recall in your mind the words: ‘Come follow me” – to live as I lived and do as I did
   207. I have been with you and have lived closely with you, listened, watched, prayed and found that God’s special grace has no limit to race, culture, or tradition
   208. So together all of us live and work for God and bring our people to know and love Him too
   209. He went about doing good, preaching to the people, healing the sick and forgiving sinners
   210. An ordinary good education and common sense, a cheerful disposition with no tendency to narrowness or scruples, are the most natural qualifications, and a big love of souls
   211. It would be very easy for Sisters to be deceived into leading a busy and materialistic useful life, in the end do practically nothing for the souls of the people,-at least no lasting good
   212. As i may no longer work here, I think that I can best fulfil my intension by devoting my life to prayer for the Missions
   213. I consecrated my life to the Missions and If I may no longer work actively, I will try to fulfil my intention by praying for them
   214. You know children, Angels are good. They are always willing to carry out God’s command. So you are to be like Angels
   215. He delights in our unselfish will to please Him
   216. “O Christ my Christ, come and live in me, work in me, love in me, suffer in me, to the glory of the father and for the sanctification of souls. Oh multiply they saints and lovers
   217. What is this for eternity? The darker the night, the near the dawn
   218. When our dear ones go, it certainly lifts our hearts from earth, but what a happy welcome from our Lord
   219. Our Lord has a very beautiful home for you
   220. Eternity will be very long so you must not be in too great a hurry to go to Heaven
   221. Before God I have practically no choice and I go willingly
   222. But God is above all, and over all, as i well know if I die today with my work only begun, it will be worthwhile
   223. God is more than good to me.. if it is His Holy Will I trust I shall hold out at least till other workers come and i am not much needed
   224. Suffering and death level all ranks, and bring all within the scope of Charity
   225. May God comfort you and strengthen you. The world is not home, but home is coming and then no more partings
   226. Of the future, at present, I see nothing clearly
   227. This is a bitter cross, but just like the bitterest part of His own. May He comfort you
   228. It will be as God wills
   229. We must be the mainsprings and guides of the work until such a time as the natives can do without us
   230. Lay thy hand upon my troubled soul, say to its passions, its cares, its restless desires, “peace be still”, that in the stillness, i may hear what and how my God wouldst speak to me
   231. Everytime I hear the clock strike i pray for the members of the Congregation both living and death
   232. How wonderfully He brings us through every difficulty and trial
   233. Do you ever wonder why God specially loves you?
   234. If you go into a half-darkened room you will not notice must dust, but pull up the blinds, and the sun light reveals what was hidden before
   235. The light does not increase the faults but knowledge is the first step towards their removal and something to be thankful for
   236. So increase of light and grace reveal faults and imperfections of which we were unconscious before
   237. The superior should be looked upon as the mother of the family who will give account of the members and would give them spiritual and temporal care
   238. Even a true vocation can be tried beyond what is prudent
   239. Do pray that I may be shown what to do
   240. Take the Community as your home, as your family and love everybody as you would like to be loved
   241. The work is so vast, so easy, there are such marvellous returns and it is so evidently blessed by God
   242. I shall pray much for you and all the workers and the work
        1. Prince of Peace! O word of God! Let there be quiet in my soul when i prayer
   243. It is wonderful to look back and trace the workings of Providence
   244. After all that God has done in the past, I can have no fear of the future
   245. I have received far, far more than a hundred-fold of consolations and can never thank God enough
   246. It is God’s will, I have done all I can, I am satisfied and in peace
   247. God is sending us, so many blessings
   248. My desire to work and die on the foreign mission is as great today as when I sent my petition to the Holy Father in 1922
   249. God has blessed the work beyond all hopes. Thanks be to Him