26 March is the Feast Day of Blessed Maddalena Caterina Morano. But, who is Blessed Maddalena Caterina Morano?
It is said that she asked for the Grace of living until she became a Saint.
Four quick facts about Blessed Maddalena Caterina Morano:
Birth and Death: Maddalena Caterina Morano was born on 15 November 1847 in Chieri, Italy, and died of cancer on March 26, 1908, in Catania, Sicily.
Religious Life: She became a member of the Salesian Sisters (Daughters of Mary Help of Christians), founded by St. John Bosco, making her solemn profession on 4 September 1879.
Educator and Catechist: Morano dedicated her life to education, working as a teacher and catechist. She founded numerous schools, oratories, and institutes, particularly in Sicily.
Beatification: On 5 November 1994, in Catania, Pope John Paul II beatified her, recognized for her heroic virtues and contributions to Christian education.
Blessed Maddalena’s life can be divided into two thirty-year periods: the first lived as a secular person, the second as a Nun. She was born in Chieri (Turin) on 15 November 1847 in a poor family that, however, could have been rich if her father, of very wealthy status, had not been disinherited for having married a modest girl from Chieri, Caterina Pangella. It has been said that her father married below his station.
Maddalena was the sixth of eight children born to her parents. Her father, worn out by military life, died in 1855. The following month, Francesca, the eldest sister, died. A year later, it was Joseph’s turn. In three years, three coffins! One can imagine the pain and extreme poverty of a mother left alone with three children. Caterina is forced to stop school to start working: a small loom next to her mother’s to weave webbing from morning to night. A maternal cousin, Don Francesco Pangella, made Magdalena return to school by bearing the costs and making a modest contribution to the family.
Blessed initiative! It was like putting the girl back on the path most suited to her. Her dream was to be a teacher; she was only 15 years old when this dream came true.
The parish priest of Buttigliera, having opened a nursery school, entrusted the responsibility of looking after and teaching the children to Madalena. She obtained her teacher’s diploma in 1864 and was immediately employed as an elementary school teacher in Montaldo Torinese. Here, she immediately won the girls’ hearts and the whole village’s esteem ‘more than the parish priest and the mayor himself.’ She revealed exceptional teaching skills. It has been said of her that she was a born educator: capable of discipline, clear and compelling in her exposition, and generous in her dedication. She immediately put her pedagogical art at the service of parish catechesis. The Catechism! It was to be the ‘dominant passion’ of her entire life until a few days before her death!
A particularly significant episode dates back to the Montaldo period of Magdalena’s life. A poor beggar, all dirty and ragged, fell ill. No one dared to enter his hovel. When Catherine heard about it, she had no doubts. Despite the repugnance and the risk of malicious comments from the people, she went there, looked after him, and prepared him to die well. This was not a simple, empty gesture. She had been cultivating the desire to consecrate herself to the Lord and her neighbors full-time for years. What had held her back until then was her family’s financial situation. However, now that she had secured a house and a small plot of land for her mother with her monthly salary, she revealed her vocation. Finally beginning to dream of a quieter time, her mother welcomed the news with tears. The parish priest exclaimed: “Oh, dear me…. It would have been less damage to the parish and the village if they had taken the curate away from me!”.
The first thirty years of life were drawing close, and age already posed a problem for entering a religious order. Where to go? In seclusion? Passing one day through Turin, she spoke about it to Don Bosco, who sent her to Don Cagliero. And he said: “Cloistered nun? Oh no!” he answered her, “The book of the Office would fall from your hands because you couldn’t keep still.” She became a Daughter of Mary Help of Christians. She entered Mornese in August 1878. She was received by Mother Mazzarello and was immediately put to teach. In 1880, she consecrated herself to God by taking her final vows and asked the Lord for the grace “to remain alive until she had completed the measure of holiness.” It was precisely in the year St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello died (1881) that she received her first obedience: headmistress in Trecastagni (Catania).
From Piedmont to Sicily! She had to do everything: headmistress, formator, catechist, nurse, cook, and more. For four years, she directed, taught, washed, cooked, was a catechist, and above all, witnessed, so much so that the girls began to say they wanted to be like her. After a year’s break in Turin, where she directed the Valdocco house, she was sent back to Sicily as Directress and Novice Mistress. She was given responsibility for the whole island. Requests from bishops poured in. She responded with generosity, constantly opening new houses. The birth of the house in Alì Marina (Messina) dates back to 1890: a true beacon of irradiation for the entire nascent province. Mother Morano was highly esteemed by the Servant of God, Cardinal Guarino, by Blessed Card. Dusmet and his successor, Cardinal Francica Nava, entrusted the entire ‘Opera dei Catechismi’ in the diocese of Catania to her. Devoted to St. Joseph and Mary Help of Christians who guided her in the new foundations, she succeeded in faithfully inculturating Don Bosco’s charism and the Preventive System. She was a woman of action and governance, maternal and firm simultaneously.
The provincial of the time, Fr. Giuseppe Monateri, said: “I had the impression of seeing Saint Teresa of Avila in her person, always aflame with the love of God, but always on the move.” In her many activities, she was sustained by a deep interior life. She was humble: “If the Lord had not wanted me to be a nun, perhaps I would be in jail by now.” She drew strength and effectiveness from prayer and constant union with God: “Let us take one look at the earth and ten at heaven.” She always began her day with the Stations of the Cross. She had the charisma of a foundress: she opened 19 houses, 12 oratories, 6 schools, 5 kindergartens, 11 workshops, 4 boarding schools, and 3 religious schools, arousing the admiration of all civil authorities and ecclesiastical hierarchies alike. It was said of her: “She is a great woman, an extraordinary woman.” She was an exceptional formator: at her death, there were 142 sisters, 20 novices, and 9 postulants. Crippled by a cancerous disease, Mother Morano died in Catania on 26 March 1908. When she died, the Superior General, Mother Caterina Daghero, exclaimed: “With the death of Mother Morano, we have lost the mold.” St. Pope John Paul II proclaimed her blessed in the city where she died on 5 November 1994. Her body is venerated in Alì Terme (Messina).
Prayer
Father, who enriched Blessed Magdalene Morano
with a marked educational wisdom,
grant us, through her intercession
the graces we ask of you.
Grant that we, too, with joy and untiring love,
know how to give ourselves to the proclamation of the Gospel, with words and with life.
Make us strong in hope that we may glorify you and be, before our brothers and sisters,
credible prophets of Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.
Pierluigi Cameroni, SDB
(Fonte: Pierluigi Cameroni – Come stelle nel cielo)