From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   March 3rd - St. Teresa Eustochio Verzeri   
      
   Teresa Verzeri was born in Bergamo (Italy) on July 31, 1801, the first of   
   the   
   seven children of Antonio Verzeri and the countess Elena Pedrocca-Grumelli.   
   Her   
   brother, Girolamo, became Bishop of Brescia. Her mother, doubtful of whether   
   she   
   should give herself to matrimony or embrace the monastic life, had listened   
   to   
   the prophetic word of her aunt, Madre Antonia Grumelli, a Franciscan Poor   
   Clare   
   Nun: "God has destined you for this state to become the mother of holy   
   children."   
      
   At a very tender age Teresa learned from her mother, a prominent woman, to   
   know   
   and ardently love God. She was led in her spiritual journey by the Canon   
   Giuseppe Benaglio, the Vicar General of the Diocese of Bergamo, who already   
   accompanied the family.   
      
   Teresa completed her initial studies at home. Intelligent, gifted with an   
   open   
   spirit, vigilant, and upright, she was educated to discern, to seek true   
   values   
   and to be faithful to the action of grace. From childhood to maturity Teresa   
   allowed herself to be led by the Spirit of Truth that engaged her in a   
   constant   
   and intense spiritual battle: in the light of faith she discovered and   
   experienced the weight of her own weakness; she unmasked, as far as humanly   
   possible, every idolatrous form of falsehood, pride, and fear, in order to   
   surrender totally to God. Through grace, she traveled a road of detachment,   
   of   
   purity of intention, of simplicity and straightforwardness that brought her   
   to   
   seek "God alone."   
      
   Interiorly Teresa lived the special mystic experience of the "absence of   
   God,"   
   anticipating something of the religious life of today: the weight of human   
   solitude before a restless sense of the distance of God. Nevertheless, in   
   unshakable faith, Teresa never lost her confidence and abandonment to the   
   living   
   God, provident and merciful Father, to whom she devoted herself in   
   obedience.   
   Her lonely cry, like that of Jesus, became the entrusting of her whole self   
   through love.   
      
   With the intention of pleasing God and doing only his will, her religious   
   vocation matured at home and in the Benedictine Monastery of St. Grata.   
   After a   
   long and tormenting search, she left the Monastery to found the Congregation   
   of   
   the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus together with the Canon Giuseppe   
   Benaglioon February 8, 1831, in Bergamo.   
      
   Teresa Verzeri lived during the first half of the 1800s, a time of great   
   transformation in the history of Italy and the society of Bergamo, marked   
   with   
   political changes, revolutions, and persecutions that did not spare the   
   Church,   
   which was also wounded by Jansenism and by the crisis of values, resulting   
   from   
   the French Revolution.   
      
   At a time when the devotion to the Sacred Heart found resistance, she gave   
   to   
   the first Daughters of the Sacred Heart this testament that characterizes   
   the   
   spiritual patrimony of their religious family: "To you and to your Institute   
   Jesus Christ has given the precious gift of his Heart, for from no one else   
   can   
   you learn holiness, he being the inexhaustible source of true holiness"   
   (Libro   
   dei Doveri, vol. III,p. 484).   
      
   Teresa saw very clearly the pressing needs of her times. Wherever charity   
   called, she seized the situation, even the most dangerous and serious, with   
   absolute availability, and with her first companions she dedicated herself   
   to   
   diverse apostolic services: "education of middle-class troubled girls; homes   
   for   
   orphans who were at risk, abandoned and even led astray; public schools,   
   christian doctrine, retreats, holiday recreations and assistance to the   
   infirm"   
   (Libro dei Doveri, vol. III, p. 368).   
      
   In fulfilling her mission Teresa revealed her special talent as spiritual   
   guide,   
   as apostle and as pedagogue. She expressly professed the preventive system:   
   "cultivate and attentively guard the mind and heart of your little girls   
   while   
   they are still young, to prevent as far as possible, any entrance of evil,   
   it   
   being better to avert a fall with your warnings and admonitions than to have   
   to   
   lift them up again with correction" (cf Pratiche, 1841).   
      
   Education is a work of freedom and persuasion, respecting individuality. For   
   this she recommended that the young be allowed "a holy freedom so that they   
   may   
   do willingly and with full agreement that which, oppressed by command, would   
   only be accomplished as a burden and with violence." In addition, she   
   desired   
   that the choice of methods established be adapted "to the temperament, the   
   inclinations, the circumstances of each person... and be according to the   
   capacity of each" (Libro dei Doveri, vol. III, p. 347 and 349).   
      
   In 1836 Canon Benaglio died and Teresa, supported by the obedience that   
   guaranteed that the Congregation was willed by God, dedicated herself   
   totally to   
   its approbation, strengthening and expansion. In this she was affronted by   
   many   
   obstacles placed in the way by civil authorities, and also by ecclesiastics   
   who   
   put her virtue to the hard test. Teresa showed herself heroic in abandonment   
   to   
   the will of God that sustained her.   
      
   After a life of intense giving, Teresa Verzeri died in Brescia on March   
   3,1852.   
   She left to the Congregation, already approved by the Church and by the   
   government, a vast documentation-above all in the Constitutions, the Book of   
   Duties and in more than 3,500 letters-from which it is possible to draw all   
   the   
   richness of her spiritual and human experience.   
      
   The precious spiritual patrimony transmitted to the Congregation finds its   
   center in the Heart of Jesus from whom the Daughters of the Sacred Heart   
   inherit   
   the spirit of magnanimous charity that compels one to be "all to all" in an   
   intimate relation with the Father and in loving solicitude for one's   
   neighbor.   
      
   Teresa expressed it this way: "The Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,   
   like   
   those who draw their charity from the very source of love, that is, from the   
   Heart of Jesus Christ, must burn with the same love of the Divine Heart for   
   their neighbor: purest charity that has no aim save for the glory of God and   
   the   
   good of souls; universal charity that excludes no one but embraces all;   
   generous   
   charity that does not draw back from suffering, is not alarmed by   
   contradiction,   
   but rather, in suffering and opposition, grows in vigor and conquers through   
   patience" (Libro dei Doveri, vol. I, p. 58).   
      
   Animated by this spirit, the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus continue   
   the   
   mission of Teresa today in Italy, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, in the   
   Central   
   African Republic and in Cameroon, in India, and in Albania.   
      
   In the contemplation of the Heart of Christ they receive the mandate to go   
   to   
   every man and woman with a dedication that loves the poor with predilection,   
   is   
      
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