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| Saint Teresa Eustochio, Pray for us ! |
⛪ Other Names :
⁕ Ignazia Verzeri
⛪ Born :
⁕ 31 July 1801 at Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy as Ignazia Verzeri
⛪ Died :
⁕ 3 March 1852 at Brescia, Italy • Her relics are in the chapel of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Bergamo, Italy
Teresa Verzeri was born on July 31, 1801 in Bergamo (Italy); is the eldest daughter of the seven sons of Antonio Verzeri and of the countess Elena Pedrocca-Grumelli. Brother Girolamo will become Bishop of Brescia. The mother, doubtful whether to choose marriage or to embrace the monastic life, was heard in a prophetic tone by Aunt M. Antonia Grumelli, a Clarissa nun: "God gives you that state to make you a mother of holy offspring".
At the tender age, Teresa learns from her mother, an eminently Christian woman, to know and love God ardently. In his spiritual journey he was followed by the Canon Giuseppe Benaglio, Vicar General of the Diocese of Bergamo, who was already accompanying his family.
Teresa completes her initial studies at home. Intelligent, endowed with an open spirit, vigilant, upright, she is educated in discernment, in search of perennial values and fidelity to the action of grace. From childhood to the most mature age, Teresa lets herself be enlightened by the Spirit of Truth who will animate her to a constant and lively spiritual battle: in the light of faith she discovers and experiences the weight of her frailty, exposing, as far as possible, to a human being , every idolatrous form of lying, of selfishness, of fear, to surrender totally to God. He travels, in grace, a journey made of despoilment, purity of intention, rectitude and simplicity that leads her to seek "God alone".
Internally, Teresa experiences the particular mystical experience of "the absence of God", anticipating something of the religious life of today's man: the weight of human solitude before the disquieting sense of distance from God. In the unshakable faith, however, Teresa does not lose her confidence and abandonment in the living God, provident and merciful Father, to whom life is voted in obedience, and as in Jesus, his cry of solitude becomes the surrender of all of himself out of love.
In order to please God and to do only his will, he matures his religious vocation between the family and the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Grata, from which he leaves after long and troubled research, to found in Bergamo, together with the Canon Giuseppe Benaglio , February 8, 1831, the Congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Teresa Verzeri lives in the first half of the 19th century, a period of great transformations in the history of Italy and the society of Bergamo, marked by political changes, revolutions, persecutions that do not spare the Church, also crossed by Jansenism and the crisis of values, fruit of the French Revolution.
At the moment when devotion to the Sacred Heart finds resistance, she gives the first Daughters of the Sacred Heart this testament, which characterizes the spiritual patrimony of their religious family: " Jesus Christ, to you and your Institute has made the precious gift of his Heart, so that holiness can not be learned from others, since he is the inexhaustible source of true holiness ". ( Book of Duties, vol. I, page 484).
Teresa sees the urgencies very well, she captures the needs of her time. With absolute availability to any situation where charity requires it, even to the most dangerous and serious, with his first companions he dedicates himself to various apostolic services: " education of young people of medium and low class, boarding schools of unsafe orphans, abandoned and even misguided, schools, Christian doctrine, spiritual exercises, festive recreations, assistance to the sick "( Practices, 1841).
In his mission he reveals his special gifts as a teacher of spirit, apostle and pedagogue. Teresa expressly professes the preventive system: " Cultivate and keep very carefully the mind and heart of your young girls while they are still tender, to prevent, as far as possible, that evil enter them, being better to preserve from fall with your calls and warnings that raise them up with correction "( Book of Duties, Volume III, page 368).
Education is a work of freedom and persuasion, respecting individuality: this is why it recommends leaving young people "a holy freedom so that they work willingly and in full agreement what, oppressed by command, they would do as weight and violence" ; that the choice of means is adapted "to the temperament to the indole, to the inclinations, to the circumstances of each one ... and to the knowledge of each one" establish the way to treat it ( Book of Duties, vol. I, page 447 and 349).
In 1836 the Canon Benaglio died; Teresa, supported by the obedience that guarantees her to be the Congregation desired by God, is totally dedicated to her approval, consolidation and expansion. For this reason, he faces many obstacles set up by the civil authorities, as well as by people in the ecclesiastical hierarchy who put their virtue to the test. Teresa shows herself heroic in abandoning the will of God who supports her.
After a life of intense donation, Teresa Verzeri died in Brescia on March 3, 1852. She left to the Congregation, already approved by the Church and the civil side, a vast documentation - especially in the Constitutions, in the Book of Duties and in more than 3,500 letters - from the which is possible to draw all the riches of his spiritual and human experience.
The precious spiritual heritage conveyed to the Congregation finds its center in the Heart of Jesus from which the Daughter of the Sacred Heart inherits the spirit of charity that drives her to become "all in all" in an intimate relationship with the Father and in loving solicitude towards every human being.
Teresa thus expresses herself: " The Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, like those who draw their charity from the very source of love, that is, from the Heart of Jesus Christ, must burn to their neighbors the same charity of that divine Heart. pure that has seen only to the glory of God and the good of souls, universal charity that does not exclude a person, but embraces all, generous charity that is not lost by suffering, is not dismayed by contradiction, but rather, in suffering and opposition grows in force and wins with patience " ( Book of Duties, Volume I, page 58).
Animated by this spirit, the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus continue the mission of Teresa, today, in Italy, in Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, in the Central African Republic and in Cameroon, in India and in Albania.
In contemplating the Heart of Christ they receive the mandate to go to every man and woman with dedication that favors the poor, open to every service, solicitous in always promoting the dignity of the person, to be the Heart of Christ where the need is greatest.
The relics of Teresa Verzeri are venerated in the chapel of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Bergamo.