It is not only in the Spring that we have the happiness of contemplating a great variety of flowers around us: here in Brazil, the month of April brings beautiful flowers to delight our eyes.

The red and lilac shades soon remind us of Dona Lucilia: sacrifice, love, delicacy, sanctity…We saw how, in Chapter V, Part I, Dona Lucilia endured pains with extreme virtue and even while suffering the ailments of the disease, she took charge of preparations for the trip to Europe. While traveling, despite the pain she experienced, “…she did not lose her invariable and virtuous serenity of soul…”, and with such a state of mind she contemplated the dazzling panorama of the trip.

Are we ladies ready for our own tests? How do we prepare for these moments of challenge?

“Dona Lucilia, in peace of soul so typical of the just, although surrounded by the storm of trials, never spoke of her own pains…”

Despite her state of health, her attitude was one of firmness, stability, continuity and decision in the face of the risk that would come. She would not change; she would continue to move forward. She portrayed a calm, unwavering and smooth deliberation: “It must be so, and so it will be; God will provide.”

Dona Lucilia’s spirit of resignation enabled her to find a way to coexist with pain.

The Lucilian virtues are those which we ladies must ask Our Lord Jesus Christ for through the hands of the Blessed Virgin. Those virtues must sanctify us and make us true Catholics: combative and counter-revolutionary while simultaneously not allowing us to waver, to compromise in the tendencies, to be proud, sensual or vain. They will instead place in us a joy of faith, hope and love of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, making us ladies of the Lucilian Army.

“I remember that she liked very much a flower called Primavera..the members of our movement living there cut many of those flowers and gave them to me to take, every time I returned to Sao Paulo. 

When I arrived, I would give her the flowers, and I saw how she loved to see them. Sometimes, softly and discreetly, Mama would stop breathing a little and make a comment…Ultimately, it was a relationship with Our Lord, with Our Lady and with the whole supernatural world.

All the different states of soul of Dona Lucilia proceeded from that very high sense that inhabited her, which constituted my greatest charm with her and which I tried to save and implant in myself, as much as I could.” Dr. Plinio Correa de Oliviera