Saint of May 13: Santa María Mazzarello. Catholic Santoral

“Courage, which after a few days of combat we will have paradise forever,” Santa María Doménica Mazzarello, co -founder of the daughters of Maria Auxiliadora, was once, together with San Juan Bosco.

Mazzarello was born in Mornese (Italy) in 1837, within a very Christian peasant family. Since childhood he started working in the field. “So God does not let us miss bread, it is necessary to pray and work,” he said.

One day he walked down the street and had a mysterious vision in which there was a large building with several girls who ran in the courtyard and heard a voice that said: “I entrusted them.” With a close friend, named Petronila, she decided to open a workshop to teach sewing to poor girls. The Lord sent him to the first orphans, which Maria Doménica marsally welcomed. This also came the first collaborators in his work. These women were “baptized” by the confessor of María Doménica as the “daughters of the Immaculate.”

Don Bosco would arrive in his town in 1864 with the intention of opening a school. On that visit he had the opportunity to meet Sr. Maria and see the workshop of the “daughters of the Immaculate.” San Juan Bosco was very impressed. Santa Mazzarello, on the other hand, after treating the old priest, said full of trust: “Don Bosco is a saint and I feel like that.”

Some time later Pope Pius IX asked Don Bosco to found a women’s institute. He immediately thought of the “daughters of the Immaculate”, and decided to put them in charge of the school he had barely built.

In 1872, the “daughters of the Immaculate” became “daughters of Mary Help of Christians” with papal venia; And Santa María Mazzarello was appointed First Superior, although she would ask her “Vicaria” to be called “the true superior was the Virgin” -.

Mother Mazzarello was a very cheerful, simple and hardworking person. Of those people who understand that the position of responsibility is a service and not occasion to seek power. Time would pass and the work paid many pastoral fruits as it consists until today. It is enough to consider how the daughters of Maria Auxiliadora have extended their presence in dozens of countries.

Over the years, Sister Maria’s health was declining, in large part because of the intensity she lived with, detached from the world’s comfort and without looking for herself. Aware that I could stay little time, he said goodbye to Don Bosco in a last meeting.

During this, the saint told him a story in which the “death” entered a convent and not finding anyone to take, asks the mother superior to be she who follows her. The superior, knowing that it was God who called her, followed her. In this way, the saint had confessed that God, probably, wanted her definitely by his side, in the kingdom of heaven.

Santa Mazzarello left the father’s house on May 14, 1881, in Nizza Monferrato, at 44 years of age. It was beatified by Pius XI in 1938 and canonized by Pius XII in 1951.