Maria Domenica Mazzarello A Woman of Faith In

Maria Domenica Mazzarello – A Woman of Faith

In each beatification process the church collects testimonies, which confirm the virtues of faith, hope and charity in the person destined to be beatified. So it was for Mother Mazzarello.

Her faith enabled her to feel the presence of God as “ rock of salvation”, to believe in Jesus, who is “all her strength”, and to be continuously in His Presence. Therefore the success of her mission and her life’s message never fails through changing times and situations.

A PASSIONATE SEARCH FOR GOD

Maria Domenica’s life of faith is marked by a passionate search for God, through the common and popular ways- of deepening her knowledge of Him, of prayer, of love, of suffering, acceptance, of sacramental and ecclesial meetings, of faithful reference to the Holy Virgin Mary. When she was very young, she used to go to church from the Valponasca farmstead through almost impassible paths and in any season, in order to participate in the Eucharist every day.

That daily pilgrimage is one of the most evident expressions of her search for God and of her deep thirst for Jesus from an early age.

Her consciousness that Faith in God enlightens our life and gradually transforms it, led her to give catechesis an absolute value. Those who knew here wrote: “We can say she had at heart the religious education of the young girls during her life and all the sisters had to study Christian doctrine well in order to teach it to people. She recommends to the girls from Uruguay: “tell the sister to teach you to love the Lord, to learn well the duties of good Christians”. (L 44, 2)

HER GREATEST JOY WAS TO MAKE GOD KNOWN AND LOVED.

While Maria Domenica was interested in everything related to human nature and dedicated great attention to health, work, studies and human progress, to joy, to the need for love in everyone, her educative action is carried out within a wider horizon. Her formative programme aimed at helping the girls and the sisters, dependent on her, to realize the project of God for their lives. She takes care of young girls and boys with love. Her life’s mission was to "attract many souls to Jesus” (L 5, 12), because she believes that only in Him our human existence finds meaning and fulfillment.

Her spirituality is simple and her educative style is inspired by the principles of Christian wisdom contained in the catechism: God is our Lord, the owner of the house and the heart of the people; the human being is created to know him and to love him on earth and for eternity.

A LIFE DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE ROCK OF FIDELITY AND FULL OF JOY

As a matter of fact the believer is a sure person based on the solid rock of fidelity in God and of His love. So she, the person who knows the Lord, trusts, she does not fear and she is not afraid. She remains resolute, faithful, calm, deep-rooted on the solid rock of His Word (cf Mt 7, 24 -27).

Her letters are full, even better, overflowing with this security which bursts out in the unquestionable statement: “Jesus must be all our strength” (L 37, 11 e 22, 21). Since she owns this inner stability, she can also encourage others, give confidence, hope, communicative cheerfulness.

THE ABILITY TO DISCERN THE ESSENTIAL

Faith makes our intelligence capable of a vision of reality and of an understanding of events which goes beyond the appearance. There is in Maria Mazzarello’s life the strong capability, typical of women: the art of synthesis, which guides her to pick the focal points, thanks to heart intuition rather than by reasoning.

The particular emphasis on the essential gives her the possibility to overcome what is uninteresting, contingent, or miserable. She wisely encourages the educators not to have a small heart, but to have a “generous and great heart” (cf L 27, 14 e 47, 12), not divided by anyone or anything (cf L 65, 3)15, in order not to lose themselves in narrow alleys and limit themselves to closed horizons. She shows them how to move their soul to great things, to tend towards strong ideals and she guides the girls and educators to find out and to want “what is most important” (L 58, 4).

FAITH WHICH BECOMES PRAYER AND ATTENTION TO HIS PRESENCE

Maria Domenica is a woman of prayer. She has learned to live in the presence of God, interiorizing the journey of faith through prayer which expresses a deep relationship with Jesus. An obvious sign of this relationship is the beautiful meeting among friends.

Mornese was a house of continuous prayer. It was a house of faith and of love of God, of love received and given, of missionary passion, courage in facing sacrifices, generosity and continuous attention to His presence.

Maria Domenica is a woman of faith and deep union with God, but this does not exclude her from the world or from people. On the contrary she finds in this communion the secret of loving charity towards the sisters and the young girl, the source of her apostolic creativity. It is good to remember that now she lives in the glory of Heaven and does not stop praying and interceding for all of us, her daughters. She also “keeps us in her heart” more intensely.