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Home... Beyond Those Stars
"She dies for the Congregation," a sister whispered. "She dies for all of us. This agony, all this pain, is offered willingly for her daughters. She is `buying' courage and fidelity so that we Pauline sisters will strong, firm, united. Oh, if I could only take a little of the pain from her. But she would never let me. She was always like that..."
The fever mounted. Mother Thecla's face became twisted with anguish, her body jolted by cruel spasms. The pages of her memory seemed to spin like loose-leaf sheets in a November wind, and the events of her life passed in front of her. She was a little girl again back in Castagnito.
"Mama," she was asking as they walked along, "what will it be like to receive Jesus in Holy Communion?"
"It will be like going to heaven," came the sure reply.
"Will I go to heaven soon?"
"Oh no, only after a lifetime of hard work."
"What kind of work? Sewing, cooking?"
"Perhaps, but the kind doesn't matter. What matters is to do what you can, the best way you can, for love of God."
"Just obey him."
Time jumped ahead. The carriage was bouncing swiftly down the road.
"Good-bye Mama, Papa, John, Costanzo, Charles. Good-bye, Castagnito."
The voice of Father Alberione sounded out of the past: "Bishop Castelli has asked me if you and your companions will take charge of his diocesan newspaper. Shall I accept for you?" Fifteen days later saw the first issue of "Valsusa". From then on growth of the Pauline dream - vows, the move to Rome, countless prayers to St. Paul, father of the infant Congregation, but not without worry; the sacrifices, hard on the body but good for the soul; criticism; suffering. God's will... God's will, no matter the cost. Advances in the apostolate, miracles of faith. No human means could explain them.
"Just obey," spoke Father Alberione, "and you will see. Obey... Obey... Obedience works miracles."
Approval of the Constitutions, first diocesan and then Papal approval. "Our way is now certain," spoke the Founder. "The Church has put her stamp of final approval on your apostolate. You are sure of being in the will of God."
Then the Mother General's body became still. She seemed scarcely to breathe.
Prayers led by Father Alberione filled the sickroom where a foundress lay dying. Soon, all was quiet. It was February 5, 1964. Mother Thecla's life on this earth was over; she had found eternal life.
"Look to heaven," she tells our modern age. "Up there all human pains vanish; miseries disappear. We will be perfect, is it not so? Oh, to rise again, young, beautiful, in the fullness of strength. To rise never again to suffer, never again to die!
"Look up to heaven, not downwards to earth, because here below we will always find something that is not right. Look up at the clear blue sky. . . Let us push ourselves ever upward - all the way to heaven!
"That must be our joy and the thought of heaven must fill us with the courage to overcome every difficulty. Always look to heaven. Always desire and seek heaven with all our strength, not only for ourselves but for all people."
Mother Thecla Merlo
Yes is Forever, by the Daughters of St. Paul, Copyright © 1981, Daughters of St. Paul. |
The pages began to spin once more. She was a teenager again. "What do you have to do?" Mama Vincenza was asking after meeting Father Alberione.
Sisters walking in pairs, carrying leather bags filled with books, sisters staffing St. Paul book and film centers, sisters working the machines that produce books, radio and television programs, films and other media. Sisters of every background and culture, laboring for God and people. Her voice sounded: "And to think, we used to be nine; we used to be nine."