It is already one year! Yet our joy is as it was on the first day. We waited so long for this beatification. It is therefore an event that we have celebrated in thanksgiving in different continents where we continue the work of Blessed Mother Alphonse Mary. In Oberbronn, Bishop Raffin gave a homily on this anniversary day that goes beyond the frontiers of the convent. Here are some extracts:

"There is one year; we were gathered at Strasbourg Cathedral to celebrate the beatification of Elisabeth Eppinger, Mother Alphonse Mary. Her personal holiness and her charism as foundress were officially recognized. The new blessed was celebrated not only in Alsace and France, but also in all the countries where the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Saviour is now established. This is a fact that has been always impressed me since I know the Congregation, the attachment of all the sisters, regardless of their geographical origin to the foundress: it is a significant force for the unity and dynamism of the Congregation.

This morning while praying the reading service, I was touched by the writings of the Blessed Alphonse Mary, which are proposed as a reading. They establish a wonderful apostolic program to reach out, to go to those who suffer. Mother Alphonse Mary burns with the desire to speak to them about God, while relieving their physical suffering, because she knows that the relationship with God is a source of healing, but at the same time, she wants to respect them who they are and she knows that they may not be ready to accept this message.

In his great and beautiful encyclical Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI explains that the Church, in her long history, has always found the appropriate response to new calls/needs. Blessed Mother Alphonse Mary was able to find in her time what the Alsatian villages needed. Let us ask her to help us to see and understand what we can do to witness actively to Christ's love today. »