I’ll tip my cap to those of you who recognize the name of this saint and know the name of the Congregation he founded. (No fair consulting the Magi).*
One treasured benefit of being involved with the NCCF community is meeting individuals and communities who quietly and constructively advance the Kingdom. Such introductions provide salutary perspective to the unrelenting barrage of negative news, fake or otherwise, of our Church, our nation and the world.
A new member of our NCCF community are the Sisters of the Precious Blood. Eighteen years ago they and the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood (the post-nominal initials are: C.PP.S) collaborated on the creation of what has become the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation. They administer this apostolate in a neighborhood of Chicago that struggles with poverty, gangs and racial divisions.
According to its website (www.pbmr.org) the spirituality of PBMR calls its members to bring hope to the suffering, reconciliation to the alienated, a sense of community to the lonely, and a deeper faith to all who seek God. Its mission is “to renew the faith of those who already believe and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those do not yet know him”. Its “home” is a former school and is known as the Precious Blood Center, “a place of safety and welcome for many people and groups to gather, to pray, and to tell stories – a restorative and inclusive community”.
Consider this excerpt from their website: “They (young people) find the ‘Center’ a safe place in which they feel as though they belong, a place where no one judges them. They seek help in trying to find a job or do better in school. Some work part time merely to feed and clothe themselves. You often find the youth sitting in circles in order to share their pain and discover that they are not alone. They push against the negative stereotypes or labels that seem to be too often depicted in the media…..They work to stop the violence in the schools. They work against the ‘schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline’ and offer alternatives to incarceration”.
The trustees of NCCF are honored by this new association and by the confidence the Precious Blood Sisters have placed in us with the creation of their fund. Furthermore we are grateful for the example the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation sets for us and for all of Our Lord’s Church.
- In 1815 St. Gaspar del Bufalo founded the Congregatio Missionarium Pretiossimi Sanguinis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Rome, known today as the Missionaries of the Precious Blood. With his encouragement in 1834 St. Maria de Mattias founded the Congregation of the Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ.