From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Of a Pure Mind and Simple Intention  (3)    
      
      As iron cast into fire loses its rust and becomes glowing white, so   
   he who turns completely to God is stripped of his sluggishness and   
   changed into a new man. When a man begins to grow lax, he fears a   
   little toil and welcomes external comfort, but when he begins   
   perfectly to conquer himself and to walk bravely in the ways of God,   
   then he thinks these things less difficult which he thought so hard   
   before.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Book 2, Chapter 4   
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   May 14th - St. Mary Mazzarello, Don Bosco’s Lieutenant   
   (1837-1881)   
      
   How often, in the history of the saints, the male founder of a   
   religious order of men, has been providentially associated with a   
   saintly woman who has established a parallel order of nuns! One   
   recalls St. Benedict and his own sister, St. Scholastica; St, Francis   
   of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi; St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane   
   Frances de Chantal, to name just a few.   
      
   St. Mary Mazzarello was another such. She collaborated with St. John   
   Bosco, the famous Italian educator of boys and founder of the   
   Salesians (1815-1888). Under his direction she would found the   
   Daughters of Our Lady Help of Christians.   
      
   Maria Dominica Mazzarello was the first-born child of a peasant who   
   farmed near Mornese, a town in northwestern Italy not far from Genoa.   
   Her father and mother, Joseph and Maddalena Calcagno Mazzarello, were   
   hard-working folk, and their children, too, labored long hours in the   
   fields and vineyards. Teen-aged Mary, tough and strong physically,   
   thought nothing of walking frequently to their distant parish church,   
   both for Mass and to attend events in connection with the parish   
   sodality of Mary, of which she was a charter member.   
      
   This “Sodality of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate” was established in   
   1855 by the pastor, Don Pestarino, in consultation with Don John Bosco   
   of Turin, whom he highly admired. It was almost like a religious   
   order, with a rule of its own and a schedule of devotional and   
   charitable works. Thus, when a typhoid epidemic broke out at Mornese   
   in 1860, the Sodalists were asked to take care of the stricken. Mary   
   was assigned to her uncle and his family. She was rather frightened at   
   the prospect, but she consented. Along the line, she herself became   
   infected, and came close to death.   
      
   One of the after-effects of her illness was that she was no longer   
   able to engage in the rugged labors of farming. Looking for less   
   arduous means of self-support, she and a friend named Petronilla took   
   up dressmaking. Not content just to sew in partnership, the pair   
   started a business that also gave training and employment to local   
   girls. Now, Don Bosco had already won note for the vocational schools   
   he had founded for boys, in which he would train them in various   
   skills and at the same time educate them in piety and social behavior.   
   Mary sought to do the same for young women, and Don Bosco himself   
   encouraged her. Thus, he and she established, in 1872, the Daughters   
   of Our Lady Help of Christians, to be known more familiarly as the   
   “Salesian Sisters” (after St. Francis de Sales). Its earliest members   
   were former members of the Sodality of the Daughters of Mary   
   Immaculate. St. John Bosco wrote the rule for the new order and named   
   Mary Dominica, now aged 35, as their superior. He housed them in a   
   building he just had erected in Mornese as a schoolhouse for boys.   
   Incidentally, years before, Mary had a vision of some sort of a school   
   filled with pupils and supervised by nuns in habits, on that very   
   spot.   
      
   The new congregation got off to an uneven start. The villagers of   
   Mornese had wanted a school for boys in the building chosen for the   
   convent. They therefore subjected the sisters to many petty annoyances   
   and mockery, and even the relatives of the first nuns gave them the   
   cold shoulder. Some must have wondered why Don Bosco chose Mary as   
   superior, since by her own admission, she could scarcely write. But,   
   as time passed, Bosco’s choice proved justified. By 1878 six of the   
   sisters, trained by her in Salesian ideals, were deemed qualified to   
   accompany the Salesian priests’ 2nd mission to the Indians of   
   Argentina. By 1879, indeed, the order had so many aspirants that they   
   had to move to a larger convent in another locality. During Mother   
   Mary’s lifetime, 13 more convents were opened in Italy and France; and   
   by the 1930s the worldwide total of convents was 800. Teaching was   
   their main task, but they were ready to undertake any good work that   
   would benefit their pupils. The positive spirit of St. Francis de   
   Sales and St. John Bosco characterized their whole approach. They   
   achieved discipline, and achieved it well, not by plying the stick but   
   by using the gracious approach of Christ Himself.   
      
   Early in 1881, Mother Mary fell seriously ill when away from home on   
   business. She asked Don Bosco whether she was likely to recover. His   
   reply was basically: “No, it is the office of a superior to lead even   
   in death.” On April 27, Mary received the anointing of the sick. She   
   cheerfully said to the priest who administered it, “Now that you’ve   
   given me my passport, I can go any time, can’t I?” In her last hours   
   she suffered a grievous temptation to despair, but she overcame it by   
   singing softly to herself, again and again, a little hymn to Our Lady.   
      
   Mother Mazzarello died, aged 44, on May 14,1881. Pope Pius XII   
   canonized her in 1951. The remains of this lieutenant of St. John   
   Bosco are now enshrined side by side with those of her “captain”, Don   
   Bosco, in Turin.   
      
   Saint Quote:   
    At the resurrection the substance of our bodies, however   
   disintegrated, will be united. We must not fear that the omnipotence   
   of God cannot recall all the particles that have been consumed by fire   
   or by beast, or dissolved into dust and ashes, or decomposed into   
   water, or evaporated into air.   
   --St. Augustine, The City of God   
      
   Bible Quote:   
    You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was   
   completed by the works.  [James 2:22]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Born as a son,   
   led forth as a lamb,   
   sacrificed as a sheep,   
   buried as a man,   
   He rose from the dead as a God,   
   for He was by nature God and Man.   
   He is all things: He judges, and so He is Law;   
   He teaches, and so He is Word;   
   He saves, and so He is Grace;   
   He begets, and so He is Father,   
   He is begotten, and so He is Son;   
   He suffers, and so He is Sacrifice;   
   He is buried, and so He is Man;   
   He rises again, and so He is God.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)