The co-founder of the Dominican Missionaries of the Rosary Mother Ascención Nicol (1868-1940) will be beatified in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Saturday May 14. For the occasion Fides spoke with present Superior general of the congregation Mother Maria Auxiliadora Hernández Martínez. Today the congregation has 785 missionaries working in 21 nations all over the world.

Who are the Dominican Sisters of the Rosary?
Following in the footsteps of our founder Mother Ascención Nicol we strive to be women who respond to God’s call with total trust and confidence in Him. Women able to contemplate God in history and therefore open to welcome is manifestations every day. Women of profound community spirituality, simple, humble, able to create fraternity and make love of neighbour the centre of their life. Women with a strong missionary spirit able to welcome and respect different cultures of the sisters and nations with which we share life and mission. Women who love life in all its forms and spread joy, enthusiasm and hope. Women who share the suffering of others and are moved to show solidarity with a mother’s heart. Women who opt for the poor and the excluded and are committed to proclaiming to them the Good News of the Kingdom working with them and for them to achieve a more worthy life. Women critical and coherent with an attitude of continual sincere conversion. Women who believe in people as the active protagonist of their own liberation and therefore accompany them on the path to the new heavens and new earth. Women able to respond to missionary challenges at the side of the poor, even to risking our life.

The Congregation was born to evangelise the forest peoples in Peru. How has your work among these people developed in time?
In our missionary work among these people we work with the Dominican Missionaries in Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Maldonado. The missionary identity of our Institute has always favoured a simple insertion of the sisters among the people. We work mainly for the promotion of women in their reality and with respect for their traditions. Our missionary commitment developed in the areas of health pastoral and education. Today we still visit communities on the banks of the great rivers of this Amazon region where we promote programmes of formation and strive to integrate the journey of faith with human growth in all areas. We also collaborate in Justice and Peace Commissions and human rights activists including the Difensoria of the People.

What are the main fields of action for your missionary work today?
This is a permanent theme of reflection for our recent General Chapters because we feel the need to recreate our original Charisma at every moment in history in which we live. We are committed to work for concrete existential inculturation among the poorest of people in the south of the world excluded from decisions regarding their life and destiny. In the face of disrespect for the life and dignity of the poor, the violation of their rights, vexation of women and the racism which exists in our country we work to defend life, justice and peace and human rights, those of women in particular. We are involved in evangelisation which offers a significant contribution towards the building up of the universal Church which gathers and integrates all the riches and varieties of the human expressions God has showered on the world.

In these 92 years of missionary activity what have been the principal difficulties encountered by your Congregation in its mission on all five continents?
The difficulties encountered were those encountered by the local Churches in which we are inserted. One most gratifying fact is to see our sisters remain with the people even under the most dangerous and insecure conditions. In 1964 four of our sisters in Congo who decided not to leave sick people who needed their care were eventually martyred. Recently on the island of Basilan in the Philippines some sisters were miraculously freed after being kidnapped. In East Timor the Sisters’ house was burned with others in the district where they lived. Shortly before in India, many Muslims came to our house to ask the sisters help to deal with an action provoked by religious fundamentalism. In Africa, in Angola, the sisters remained with the people all through the civil war, as they did in Mozambique and now in Congo, where they live amidst great insecurity and uncertainty. The life witness of these small communities of sisters who share their life and faith with the people with simplicity, generosity and joyful self-giving is a seed sown in the good earth of simple hearts and it bears fruits of solidarity, equality and justice . (R.Z.) (Agenzia Fides 12/5/2005).