Marie Rivier, Apostle with a heart on fire

Marie Rivier is a woman possessed by Jesus Christ. Those who approach her are thrown as into fire, so greatly does her zeal glow through all her being and all her actions.

“Let us have the zeal of Marie River in order to make God present in our milieu. Let our commitments, our words and our joy proclaim “loudly and clearly” that He, God, is the One who gives meaning to our lives.” (Message from Mère Angèle, for the 30e Anniversary of the Beatification of Marie Rivier, May 2012).

S. Maria dos Anjos Alves

Marie Rivier’s life was rooted in Jesus Christ.

“Marie Rivier receives from Jesus Christ her life and her knowledge of the divine mystery. She encounters Jesus Christ in the deepest intimacy of her being. She lives Jesus Christ, she abides in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is her life. A unique desire fills her soul, guides her actions, and directs her life: Jesus Christ. Her desire to belong to Jesus Christ is absolute, admitting of no imperfection. Nothing in her must be contrary to Jesus Christ, her Savior.
I must be conformed to Jesus Christ, I must be integrated with Jesus Christ as one of his members and be united to him as my head; finally I must live the life of Jesus Christ, so that the life of Jesus Christ appear in all my conduct and even in my mortal flesh.
(S. Geneviève Couriaud)

An Option for Jesus Christ

For the baptized, following Jesus is permanent, each day and every day, and it is a way of being and of living life. There lies its greatness and also its difficulty. The option for Jesus Christ is like the treasure, the pearl which is acquired only with great risks.
It is from listening to the Word of God that we advance on the path of holiness. That is where the Master reveals himself, where he uplifts our heart and our spirit. That is where faith matures, where one learns to see reality and events with the gaze of God, until we become imbued with the thought of Christ. 1 Cor 2:16.
S. Maria dos Anjos Alves

The disciple wants to live inhabited by Christ

“To follow this desire requires an interior mobility, a docility to the movements of grace and a fidelity to the divine Will. This passionate desire to be identified, to be conformed to Jesus Christ in order to please God, entails fundamental obligations, especially that of becoming formed by all the virtues of Jesus Christ. I must apply myself assiduously to the practice of all the virtues given to me by the example of Jesus Christ; assume the virtues that are the livery of the Son of God. These simple affirmations signify that her sisters must forget themselves more and more, to lose themselves in Jesus Christ, to live an ever deeper abandonment, since love’s demands are increasingly exacting. They are obliged to study unceasingly the maxims and examples of this divine Savior, the model of all perfection so as to conform their conduct and to assume his sacred presence. Such is the logic of love. Indeed Marie Rivier specifies, would it be possible that we love Jesus Christ without wanting to imitate him as much as he is in us, since it is the essence of love to make the one who is loved, as much as possible, become like the lover. Let us therefore love Our Lord so as to imitate him.
(S. Geneviève Couriaud)