Dear Mother Alma Ruth of the Holy Spirit, dear Sisters Perpetual Adorers of the Blessed Sacrament:

I am glad to meet with you these days as you make your pilgrimage in Italy, following the footsteps of Blessed Maria Maddalena of the Incarnation, in the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Federation of the Holy Spirit.

Your presence is a luminous witness to the gratuitousness of God, who sows in the human heart the restlessness to seek and contemplate his face. It is the answer to a profound longing, beautifully expressed by the psalmist: "My heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' Your face, LORD, I will seek" (Ps 27:8-9).

This constant search for the face of God, which particularly characterizes monastic life, takes on a special nuance in the vocation you have received: it translates into a life dedicated completely to the continuous and silent adoration of a God who became bread, and who invites us to unite with Him in the sacrifice of the altar, to form one body. "As Saint Augustine explains to the new Christians of his Church, the bread and wine on the altar are the sacrament of the unity of the faithful in Christ" (Encyclical Letter Magnifica humanitas, 234). For this reason, "a Eucharistic spirituality is needed, that is, a spirituality of ecclesial unity in love" (ibid.).

Dear sisters, by manifesting in the Church the specific charism you have received from your foundress, you are called to be weavers of communion with the threads of prayer and work, of eucharistic adoration and fraternal sharing in the monastery. May this time of grace that you are living as pilgrims in the Eternal City and in the places where the Order arose renew and strengthen you to continue radiating to the world the beauty of the face of Christ in the Sacrament.

May the witness of Blessed Maria Maddalena of the Incarnation spur you to continue living your consecration with renewed hope and desire for holiness, remembering that fidelity to the ancient and ever-new wisdom of the Gospel is the best path for those who, guided by the Holy Spirit, dedicate themselves to loving God and neighbor.

May the Lord bless you and Our Lady of Guadalupe protect you with her heavenly mantle. Thank you very much.