Giuseppina Operti
Born Giuseppa Margherita Operti in Turin on November 16, 1871, her mother was a noblewoman, Adele, Baroness Sinaglia, and her father Giacomo, a high-ranking customs official of the United Kingdom of Italy. Giuseppina—as she would always be known within her family and in society—grew up in a healthy, deeply Christian, and affectionate home environment, open to politics and social issues, especially towards
the poor and humble people.
She was educated first of all in the family and then, at school age,
in the religious circles of Turin at the time.
biografia
Speaking of education, Giuseppina recounts in her diaries and chronicle that on Sundays the whole family went to Mass together: Mom and Dad, Ernesto, and I. This image of an entire family going to Mass together every Sunday is vivid today. And after Mass, Dad would take all his loved ones to the pastry shop to sample the specialties of Turin's art of baking, and along the way he always bought a dessert, because he said: even at the table, you have to see that it's the Lord's Day!
Christian education within the family was crucial to Giuseppina's personality, as it is for all young people, especially when the time for professional and vocational discernment approaches. The education received within the family certainly influences life choices, both in society and in the Church. Beyond the joy of Sunday, Giuseppina always fondly recalls in her writings the serene family life: games, competitions, walks, excursions, pilgrimages, enjoyable reading, welcome visits, but also the manual labor expertly guided by her mother, who guided her toward it as a feminine education and a means of sanctification. Prayer, joy, and work are the three elements that shaped the future Mother Maria degli Angeli within the family, and they are also the hallmarks of the lifestyle she wanted to see in all her daughters, in the realization of the Teresian Carmelite spirituality and charism that the Mother wished to instill in the Institute. Not yet fourteen, Giuseppina unfortunately had to experience the experience of a sister death: she lost her brother Ernesto at just twenty, and three months later, her father, who was unable to survive the grief of his son's death. This began a challenging period for her in life alongside her mother: she always accompanied her in the care and administration of the estates in Turin and Marene, which housed vast lands and real estate. She accompanied her on pilgrimages to various sanctuaries in Piedmont and Italy, assisted her in charitable works, and cared for the vestments of the two parishes of Turin and Marene.
Giuseppina at 15 years old.
During a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Oropa, she first encountered Carmel through Don Filippo's proposal to her mother that she enter the Third Order of Secular Carmelites. She was immediately captivated by the richness of Teresian spirituality, which would become the guiding principle of her life and of the two religious families she founded: the Carmelites of contemplative-active life and a cloistered contemplative monastery. The first, the "Carmelite Sisters of St. Teresa," was founded in her father's home in Marene on July 6, 1894. Giuseppina did not want to become an active nun, because from the moment she entered the Secular Carmelite Order, she felt the Lord's call to the cloistered life, to prolonged prayer and the silence of the cloister. However, while her mother was alive, she could not imagine leaving her alone. Therefore she gave her first response to the Lord by obeying the ecclesiastical superiors of the diocese: the Archbishop, the Secretary, the Vicar of the parish of Marene, the spiritual director and other priests who were friends of the family, who asked her to open an orphanage or boarding school in Marene for the benefit of needy, abandoned and uneducated girls.
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Meanwhile, the townspeople delighted in gossip—as they would say today—that is, chattering and making predictions about her enviable future. They hadn't understood that she had no earthly Prince Charming at her side, and that her Prince Charming was someone else, who had already betrothed her to himself and wanted her to be his wife forever. But how? The paternal home of the Operti family, home of the Institute's foundation in Marene (Cuneo). The future founder began a close dialogue with her Lord, to understand what he wanted and whether she should say "yes" to founding an Institute. She spent a long time in prayer and reflection, also wondering why she was left alone, the sole heir to a great fortune to which had been added that of her aunt, the damsel Margherita (one of her father's 17 brothers and sisters), who had died suddenly. After the storm and the turmoil came calm, after the fire came the murmur of a gentle breeze (1 Kings 19:12), and Mother understood that she had to perform this great act of charity in the Church, renouncing, at least for the moment, the realization of her greatest desire. And she decided to meekly place herself in the hands of her Superiors to be an instrument in the building of a new tabernacle in the Church of Turin.
Giuseppina was also aware of the issues of the time. Beginning in 1848—when the political climate in Italy and Europe became more heated, reforms began, and Italy was rapidly moving toward unification—the Savoy state began to take to heart the education and instruction of the working classes, as it was a crucial means of shaping future citizens. Public education was no longer left to the initiative of municipalities but became a service guaranteed and centrally controlled by the Ministry of Education, and the liberal and secular state, led by the highly efficient Cavour, took care to remove priests and religious from the leading role they had assumed in the educational field. Thus a certain hostility on the part of the State towards Christian educational institutions grew, but this did not prevent their proliferation, even in the second half of the century. Ecclesiastical superiors in fact realized that there was an educational "segment" that the State was not yet able to care for: orphans, girls and young men sent to the city to earn their living, and pre-school children from families in the poorest conditions, for whom numerous "kindergartens" were opened where they were cared for while their mothers went to work.
Religious families (from the best-known Salesians of Don Bosco to our own small Congregation) cared for these "least of the poor." Numerous religious families arose precisely to provide a charitable response to the many needs, sufferings, and poverty that would otherwise have been overlooked. Giuseppina then began, together with her mother, the work of the orphans, dedicating the Institute to Saint Joseph, a figurehead of Saint Teresa of Jesus with the Madonna and Saint Joseph: Saint Teresa of Jesus, Reformer of Carmel, who inspired Mother Maria degli Angeli to found her Congregation of apostolic-contemplative life, so dear to Carmel according to the experience of Saint Teresa of Jesus. There were difficulties, worries, discouragements, illness, and even the death of a girl from the school, along with slander from the people of Marene who discredited and disrespected the work of Mother Teresa and the Institute. But along with this journey of the cross, let's say... with the fertilizer of trial and suffering, new works are born, grow, and flourish: the Institute broadens its horizons and the pegs of its tent. Mother is forced to run here and there to cope with everything, while her heart longs for silence, seclusion, and prayer, so she keeps repeating to herself: Lord, what must I do? And the Lord made her understand that what she was doing was his will, it was what he wanted, and that her cloister had to be his heart.
Her mother, who had already faithfully followed her in founding the Institute for Orphans, also consecrated herself to God. The relationship between the two is very special: the mother calls her daughter Mother; the daughter calls her mother Sister. It was certainly a respectful, peaceful relationship, useful even because of the mother's uncommon administrative and domestic skills, but it must also have been a demanding exercise in asceticism, self-control, and mortification of the heart, because of the choice they had made to each belong to God alone, and because of the example they were to set for the community of detachment from earthly things. They were very beautiful years, full of initiatives, prayer, and sacrifices for the growth of the Institute. But the mother, who on the day of her profession had received the name of Sr. Maria Giuseppina of St. Teresa, died on October 18, 1904. The Lord reaps a first precious fruit as the Institute continues to grow. In fact, he died right in Turin where three days later a large school with annexed parish works was inaugurated in Via Principi d'Acaja.
He died a holy death, thanking the Lord for everything he had received from Him in his life.
Meanwhile, life went on, and on May 3, 1905, the first General Chapter was convened in Turin, during which Mother Maria degli Angeli renounced her appointment as prioress for life and all other positions. She was allowed to enter the novitiate to "teach with deeds what she had attempted to inculcate with her counsels," as we read in the Congregation's history. During her novitiate retreat, increasingly convinced that she had completed her task as foundress, Mother Maria degli Angeli felt her ancient and unquenched desire to embrace the cloistered contemplative life resurface within her. She discussed this with her superiors, who, seeing the Congregation in solid hands and having understood the significance of her resignation as prioress, believed they should no longer oppose what seemed to be God's plan. On August 26, 1905, Mother Maria degli Angeli entered the Carmelite monastery of Moncalieri (Turin), founded by her namesake, Blessed Maria degli Angeli (1661-1717).
After a few months, however, she was forced to leave due to her fragile health. Upon returning to the Congregation, to the great joy of her daughters, she was appointed Superior General, a role Mother Maria degli Angeli accepted solely to guide her Sisters toward holiness. But life in the Congregation was far from peaceful: several nuns asked to enter the cloister of Moncalieri. The question then arose: what did the Lord want? Is the Congregation destined to increase the number of cloistered monasteries? After much prayer, surveys, and Mother's visits to the communities, the solution of dividing the Institute into two branches emerged. This solution had also been mooted during the apostolic visit of Bishop Mauro M. Serafini, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Religious, who, while acknowledging the Congregation's spiritual fervor, maintained that everything would be fine as long as the Foundress was present, but that the orientation of some toward the cloistered life and others toward the active life would create misunderstandings and vocational crises. Therefore in December 1909 the division into "two branches emerging from the same root, two streams flowing from the same source" occurred (From the Mother's circular letter: 1 May 1908).
Mother Mary founded a new cloistered monastery in Marene under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of the Diocese of Turin, Agostino Richelmy, while a small group of about forty of her nuns, having opted for the active life, formed a community under the direction of Mother Giuseppa Vittoria of Our Lady of Grace and, soon after, under the authority of Mother Teresa of Jesus, whom we can undoubtedly consider the Co-Foundress, along with Mother Maria degli Angeli and her mother. Cascine Vica: Grate of the monastery's choir facing the presbytery of the outer church. Detail of the tabernacle. At this point, two parallel lives took shape, originating from the same Mother, both drawing from the same source: Carmel with its Teresian spirituality founded on prayer and the greatest commandment: charity towards God and neighbor.
While Mother Maria degli Angeli finally fulfills her cloistered vocation with 22 sisters following her, the Institute, despite physically missing its wise and charismatic Mother, like a newly weaned child (Ps 131), begins to walk, standing alone on a new path of quicksand. But the Lord, from above, watches over his Carmelite sisters and leads them toward new goals that mark the full identification of their active-contemplative charism. The parish church of Marene, where Mother Maria degli Angeli made her first religious profession and where she now rests in the chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
In 1914, the Constitutions were recognized by the diocesan Ordinary; in 1934, the Institute became a Pontifical Right, and in 1941, the Congregation for Consecrated Life definitively recognized the Constitutions. The small branch, born from God's initiative welcomed by Mother Maria degli Angeli, now extends its branches, puts forth leaves, and reaps fruit: today, the Institute is present in Italy, Madagascar, the Central African Republic, and Romania.
The Servant of God returned to the Father's House on 7 October 1949 after 40 years of cloistered life.
