Magdalene of Canossa [Charity Is a Fire That Ever Spreads Out]

Marina Airoldi and Dorino Tuniz MAGDALENE OF CANOSSA Charity is a fire that ever spreads out 2 Magdalene of Canossa – Charity is a fire that ever spreads out INDEX Preface of Roberto Italo Zanini Introduction I. MAGDALENE OF CANOSSA SERVANT OF LOVE 3 1. The Veronese Background 2. The Formative Years 3. First Attempts in the Religious Life 4. Napoleon in Italy 5. Years of Waiting and Trying 6. The Beginning of the House of St. Joseph and Collaboration with Leopoldina Naudet II. MAGDALENE OF CANOSSA MOTHER OF THE DAUGHTERS AND SONS OF CHARITY 1. The Invitation by the Cavanis Brothers to Venice 2. The House of St. Lucy 3. The Foundation in Milan 4. Separation from Leopoldina Naudet. Teodora Campostrini 5. The Foundation in Bergamo 6. The Country Teachers 7. Spiritual Exercises for Ladies 8. Meeting with Antonio Rosmini 9. Margherita Rosmini, Daughter of Charity, and the Foundation of the House in Trent 10. The Sons of Charity 11. The Hospital for the Convalescents in Venice 12. The Tertiaries 13. Final Approval of the Institute 14. Elizabetta Renzi, Annunciata Cocchetti and negotiations for other Foundations Magdalene of Canossa – Charity is a fire that ever spreads out III. FROM PERSONAL VOCATION TO THE FOUNDATION OF AN INSTITUTE 1. The Birth of a Vocation 2. The long elaboration of the Rules of the Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor 3. The Unabridged Rule of the Daughters of Charity 4 4. Magdalene among the Saints in glory. Canossian Mission in the World APPENDIX edited by the Canossian Institute 1. Canossians Today: the paths to the future Asia: at the helm of the great continent America: the dream continues Africa: the turn of the continent Oceania: the challenge of tireless self-gift Europe: a new mission away from traditional ways 2. Towards a cooperative solidarity Bibliography Magdalene of Canossa – Charity is a fire that ever spreads out Preface of Robert Italo Zanini Magdalene loves the Crucified because Christ on the cross is “the only great model to look up to”. She loves Our Lady of Sorrows because Mary through her personal experience is able “to understand the sufferings, the needs and the fragility of every person”. She loves charity, directed first of all towards those who are most in need or are closest to her, as this is the only tangible way for sharing God’s love for us. 5 When we look at the lives of the saints, we ask ourselves where the newness is. Magdalene of Canossa lived at the turn of the nineteenth century. For us who live two centuries later, what can she still tell us? It is easy to summarise her life point by point, at the risk of making it very ordinary. Magdalene is a rich noble lady. Magdalene wants at all cost to embrace the religious life. Magdalene desires to dedicate herself exclusively to the poor, but like many other women, has to remain with her family till a mature age, caring for her aged grand uncles and her young cousin. Magdalene fights against the countless adversities of her time... Magdalene founds a Congregation. Magdalene is definitely all that. But it does not seem sufficient for us just to consider her as a woman to be remembered two centuries later, through times that are civil and barbaric, interspersed by faith and agnosticism, poverty and progress which passed through the streets of our cities and countryside and were experienced in the hearts of our people. It is certainly not sufficient to move a Pope like John Paul II who was so enlightened and at the same time so rooted in the modern world, to canonize her at the threshold of the Third Millennium. This took place only some years before the canonization of Bakhita, the Sudanese slave from Africa, who died in Italy in the middle of the twentieth century. Bakhita had the good fortune of being introduced to Christianity towards the end of the nineteenth century when she met the Sisters belonging to the Congregation founded by Magdalene, and came to know that same Christ Crucified who is capable of speaking to the mind and heart of each and every person. Magdalene of Canossa – Charity is a fire that ever spreads out And here we are, if we could suggest, at the first seal of modernity, paradoxically the most important. The life of Magdalene spanned between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that of Bakhita was between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Similarly, we readers started our life in the twentieth century and are destined to complete it in the first century of the new millennium. History, like life, is made up of things that repeat themselves. Social, economic, political and religious problems which marked the turn of the last two centuries, are similar in many ways to our 6 present moment of history. Today as then, there is the great and exclusive hope in progress and in reason. There is a crisis of faith, a crisis of the family, the uncertainty of youth and of the conscience, the intellectual and social isolation of the Church, the incapacity of politics to give concrete responses. The multiple and threatening winds of war are raging. New and old poverties are constantly on the increase. There is a context of social relations which is on the decline without the prospect of any concrete improvement. And so, as we curiously look into the life of Magdalene of Canossa, integrally directed towards leaving a positive mark of her passage through this world, we cannot but be struck by its immense actuality. Magdalene is a modern woman. She lives through all the travails of the interior struggles of a modern woman. In her search for her way of life, she overcomes all adversities. Surpassing wealth and sex, Magdalene is the essence of modernity in the sense this word is understood in the West: Magdalene knows what she wants, uses her capabilities and obtains the desired results. She is a woman who in a certain sense is also a mirror of today’s youth. Her youthful years are marked by uncertainties, exaltations and deep discomforts. She tries for years to be independent from her family but is unable to do so, partly because she has not been given the space, partly because of her own lack of strength and partly because the mistakes she makes compel her to start all over again. Even her insights into social involvement for the poor, for single women, for the sick and the abandoned are modern. She is committed as a lay Magdalene of Canossa – Charity is a fire that ever spreads out person even before she becomes a religious, as she is convinced that women are the real leaven for the human, social and moral growth of the community in which they live. She is convinced that society can be changed from within even through the commitment of just one person. Progress is in human hands, in the same way as degradation and barbarism. Magdalene learns this at the foot of the Cross, beside Mary, and has a clear perception that this can be taught to others. In fact, this should be taught, if we want the human community to persist on the road of 7 progress. Magdalene is convinced about the importance of the school and of education right from the beginning of her religious initiative. In fact, the school and education are perhaps the greatest challenge of this century, the most important and the most forgotten. This is the greatest among the sins of omission of our time. Ours is a real mission land. On the one hand, damages have been done to our youth by the wrong kind of school, by the absent family: both incapable of educating and, above all, of merging morals and knowledge, as Magdalene wanted. On the other hand, there are new chasms of ignorance and new voids to fill, new cultural challenges to respond to, new ideas to be launched and others to be contested, and a new progress to propose. Magdalene, who stands at the foot of the Cross, beside Mary, is there to pray for us and to challenge us. Introduction In our approach towards the figure of a saint, we run the risk of “embalming her” in a sentimental and devotional vision that waters down her personality and lessens the powerful force of her witness of life. Saints instead, are usually exceptional personalities, who know how to recognize the signs and the needs of their time and have the courage to make far- sighted choices. At the same time, however, they are persons like us, who experience moments of anguish and crisis, of uncertainties about the path to follow and the relevance of the steps already undertaken. This is actually what brings us closer to them. Magdalene of Canossa – Charity is a fire that ever spreads out Magdalene of Canossa, was, in a particular way, a woman belonging to a precise era and a restricted environment, marked by particular experiences, whose journey in life was neither short nor easy for her to understand, not just what she wanted to do with her life, but what God was asking of her. We are struck by her very human struggles through doubt, discouragement, the awareness of her own incapacity, and even through the crisis of faith, as she herself recounts in her Memoirs. She has not been struck by a sudden enlightenment which would have made her strong and 8 firm in pursuing a clear goal. On the contrary, she discovers her vocation only a little at a time, with the help of wise counsellors, in the daily events of her life and from her intense spiritual experiences.

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