MADDALENA MORANO, DAUGHTER OF MARY HELP OF CHRISTIANS, BLESSED

The life of Blessed Maddalena can be divided into two thirty-year periods: the first lived as a secular, the second as a religious. She was born in Chieri (Turin) on 15th 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.

Of the eight children to be born, three of whom died soon after, Maddalena was the sixth. In 1855, her father died, worn out by military life. The following month Francesca, the eldest sister. After another year, it was Joseph's turn. In three years, three coffins! We can imagine the pain and extreme poverty of the 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. It was a maternal cousin, Don Francesco Pangella, who 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. ‘I could be a teacher!’ was her dream. She was only 15 years old when this dream came true.

The parish priest of Buttigliera, having opened a nursery school, entrusted the responsibility to this capable and intelligent teenager. Having obtained her teacher's diploma in 1864, she was immediately employed as an elementary school teacher in Montaldo Torinese. Here, she immediately won the hearts of the girls and the esteem of the whole village, ‘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, 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. A poor beggar all dirty and ragged fell ill. No one had the courage to enter his hovel. When Catherine heard about it, she had no doubts. Despite the repugnance and the risk of malicious comment from the people, she went there, looked after him, and prepared him to die well. This was not a sporadic gesture. For years she had been cultivating the desire to consecrate herself to the Lord and her neighbours full-time. What had held her back until then was her family's financial situation. However, now that with her monthly salary she had been able to secure a house and a small plot of land for her mother, she revealed her vocation. The mother, who was finally beginning to dream of a somewhat quieter time, 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 was drawing to a close and age already posed a problem for entering a congregation. 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. She was immediately put to teach. In 1880, she consecrated herself to God with perpetual 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... For four years she directed, taught, washed, cooked, was catechist, and above all witness, so much so that the girls began to say: “We want 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, always 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 by his successor Cardinal Francica Nava, who 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, a woman of governance, maternal and firm at the same time.

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 love of God, but always on the move”. In her many activities, she was sustained by a deep interior life. She was extremely humble: “If the Lord had not wanted me to be a religious, 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 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, 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 26th March 1908. When she died, the Superior General, Mother Caterina Daghero, exclaimed: “With the death of Mother Morano, we have lost the mould”. In the same city where she died, St. Pope John Paul II proclaimed her blessed on 5th 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)