September 4th, Feast of blessed Dina Bélanger

She said yes to love…

The whole of Dina’s life is a song of love, a hymn of thanksgiving to the Lord who called her and to whom she responded with a total and unreserved YES.

Her fidelity in her loving response to Love plunged her into the depths of the Trinity so that she became “a canticle of praise to the glory of God the Father”. Her life is a song of thanksgiving and praise in previously unimagined harmonies. She personifes the love that is so well expressed in the motto of her beloved Congregation: “Praised forever be Jesus and Mary”.

She was born into a well-to-do family of which she was the only and beloved daughter; she was gifted in her studies particularly for music and a brilliant future presented itself before her : numerous friends, a pleasant social life and a most promising musical career. At the Lord’s summons she left everything and answered the call of Love with love.

As a child and young woman, Dina led an ordinary life; nothing seems to have distinguished her from the others. She was carefree, sociable, a lover of beauty and of nature, and good with that goodness which gives preference to the most weak and deprived. There was no hint of that interior life which dwelt and sang within her. She already felt the call of Love and responded to it with a motto that contained a whole programme of life: “Love and let Jesus and Mary have their way”.

As a religious she tried always “to live in a spirit of praise, joy of heart, liberty of soul and generosity”. “To refuse God nothing” was the leitmotiv of her days. Although illness soon reduced her apostolic activity, her missionary zeal was not however diminished. “Would that I could gather up the whole universe and consume it in the infinite flames of his Sacred Heart. Neverthless I want to be an apostle according to the wishes of our Lord”.