Saint Maria Mazzarello

Maria Domenica Mazzarello, FMA (9 May 1837 – 14 May 1881) was an Italian Catholic nun who co-founded the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco. She was born in Mornese, in what is now the province of Alessandria, northern Italy, to a peasant family who worked in a vineyard. She was the eldest of ten children of Joseph and Maddalena Calcagno Mazzarelli. When she was fifteen she had joined the Association of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate, known for her charitable works, and run by the parish priest, Domenico Pestarino; it was a precursor to the founding of the Salesian Sisters. When she was 23 years old, a typhoid epidemic hit Mornese causing the death of many villagers. Soon, her uncle and aunt were taken ill and Mary volunteered to care for them and their many children. After a week they recovered, however when Mary returned home, she also became ill with typhoid. Due to this, she received the last rites of the Catholic Church. She recovered, but the illness left her weak. The strength which had formerly sustained her in her work in the fields was no more. Mary was now thin and frail; a shell of her formerly robust self. She took an apprenticeship as a seamstress in the town and worked diligently at the craft. Like John Bosco, the skills which she learned in her youth, she was able to pass on to those who would come after her. After she recovered from her illness, in the month of October, Mary was walking in her village and was suddenly astounded to see before her a large building with a courtyard and many girls playing and laughing. A voice said to her, "I entrust them to you". The education of girls was a particular need in the nineteenth century, and Mary decided to devote herself to this work. Hosts of farm girls from the country, or serving girls, factory workers, and street vending girls filled the streets of the city; and all of them were at risk to juvenile prostitution.