HISTORY of the Congregation of the OBLATION SISTERS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT(OSBS)

 

                                                       Congregation of the

Oblation Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament

(Vittime Espiatrici di Gesu Sacramentato)

FOUNDRESS:

ST. MARIA CRISTINA BRANDO

(May 01,1856-January 20,1906)

INTRODUCTION

We are the Oblation Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, we constitute a family inspired by God at a particular moment in history through Saint Maria Cristina Brando, to atone for the sins committed against the Eucharist and to implore the conversion of sinners.

The Institute bases its daily operations, choices and religious mission on the teachings and the history of the Foundress Saint Maria Cristina Brando. In 1878, the Mother Foundress began the Congregation of the Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, a religious institute of Pontifical Right, a work that, despite the economic hardships of its origins, found fertile ground in the town of Casoria (NA). The religious Institute obtained the canonical approval on the 7^th of July 1903 by the Supreme Pontiff Pope Leo XIII.

Our vocation and our mission are rooted in the Eucharistic mystery. The grace of the vocation, which brings us into the same sacrificial oblation of the Master, and associates us to the redemptive work of the Priest and Victim, characterizes our spiritual identity which identifies us with the path of holiness and perfection in love. We live our lives in the light of the Eucharist, with ardent faith and love towards Jesus mystically but truly present in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Eucharist is the heart, the life, the reason for being of our Congregation. Our life is revolving in the Eucharist, celebrated with Sacrifice and Adored Sacrament.

NATURE AND AIM

The Oblation Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament form a Religious Institute of Pontifical right whose main purpose is the sanctification of its members by means of the Evangelical Counsels: poverty, chastity and obedience and the exercise of the various works of charity and apostolate, mainly; Promotion of devotion to the Eucharist,Christian Education for the youth,Giving Catechism,Assistance to the children and elderly. Through these various works of the Congregation we are bringing the knowledge of the love of God wherever it is not known,makes Him become loved and in doing so,helps other to avoid those offenses that St. Maria Cristina lived to expiate. All for Reparation.The essential element of the institute is the worship of the Blessed Sacrament.

OUR CHARISM:

PERPETUAL ADORATION to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament with the spirit of REPARATION, ATONEMENT and EXPIATION for all the offences that Jesus receives in the Blessed Sacrament.

APOSTOLATE:

§ Promotion of devotion to the Eucharist

§ Christian Education for the youth

§ Giving Catechism

§ Assistance to the children and elderly

OUR IDENTITY

Letting ourselves be provoked by the love of the Immolated Lamb who offers His life as a ransom for men, we live our existence in adoring, contemplation and in reparatory action. We commit ourselves through the evangelical counsels to live in increasing confirmation to Christ, to take part in His paschal fecundity, participating in his suffering to complete in our flesh “what is lacking in the suffering of Christ, in favour of His body which is the Church.

 SPIRITUALITY

The Eucharist was the center of all the life of Saint Maria Cristina Brando in fact exhorted her sisters "We should with our adorations, go out in ecstasy of love". Her life offered to God from an early age was a hymn of praise to the Lord in every gesture, in every thought. Her soul, filled with God, conversed with her Lord even when she was immersed in the most extraneous affairs of her office as Foundress and Mother. Everything about her was about God and in everything she was looking for God, to do His will, if she was far from the tabernacle with her body she was never with her mind.

Mother Maria Cristina well knew that Jesus the Eucharist was continually offended by humanity: here is the extraordinary intuition of offering victims of expiatory so that the evil done at the Eucharist would correspond to an offering of love, in Eucharistic adoration. "To atone and repair" was the reason for living; all her actions and her life aimed at this sublime ideal of being at the feet of the cross of Jesus, as victims of expiation and reparation. Here is how he spoke to his sisters "We must repair the outrages that Jesus receives from all over the world. We must guard against the slightest defect so as not to displease Jesus. We must be victims of deeds, until we want to give our life for Jesus".

 

The Spirituality of mother foundress is the spirituality of the Congregation. And the charism and various works of charity of Oblation Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament are still continuing to flourish in Italy, Brazil, Columbia, Philippines, Indonesia and Africa. 

 

The mother house and the general house is located in Casoria, Naples Italy which the foundress,St. Maria Cristina Brando had worked so fervently for the love of God and neighbor both spiritual and material.

“The Love of God and the love of neighbor are the two branches that originate from the same trunk”. This is the summary of the Oblation Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament as: “EXPIATORY VICTIMS”.

"I want to be Holy at any costs"

- St. Maria Cristina Brando 

Apostle of the Eucharist