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Teresa Meets Paul
It was as if she had always been there. Teresa blended right in with the group of Father Alberione's apostles. She joined in their prayer, their work for God, which, during those first days meant sewing shirts so badly needed by the soldiers fighting in World War I. she joined the young women who were as dedicated as sisters but who as yet were not religious. She grasped their desire to become teachers to the whole world through the printed word. If people had only known, how they would have laughed. The matter was amusing by human standards but Father Alberione's band was not marching under a "human" banner. For them everything was in the hands of God and His Mother. But they had another heavenly helper too - the apostles Paul.
"What would St. Paul do," asked Father Alberione, "if he returned to our world today? It his been suggested that he would be a journalist. I agree.
"Paul of Tarsus, the apostles who moved like a flame through city after city, kept in touch with his converts of the early Church by means of his letters. His written messages were carried to Corinth, to Philippi, to Ephesus, and so on. The Christians gathered together and listened to those letters time and again. They made copies, circulated them, and then gathered them back again. Years passed. Christianity survived bloody persecutions and slowly sunk its roots into the mighty Roman Empire. Then barbarian hordes overran the world-power that long before had ruined itself from within. But all was not lost.
"In great stone monasteries, silent dedicated men wrote with feather pen on scrolls. Hour after hour they copied the words and paragraphs of holy Scripture, God's letter to humankind, including, of course, the Letters of St. Paul. How much good those words have done.
"Eventually, hand-written pages were formed into books, carefully bound with durable covers. Yet, how few were these until a man named Gutenberg invented a printing machine that could do what the swiftest pen in the world could not do. Down through the years, methods were perfected. Today the press apostles can preach to untold numbers with a single printing machine."
Teresa had decided to stay, to give her energies for a lifetime to this new apostolate. Everything would take time, prayer and sacrifice, and all would come true with the faith and guidance of their priest-founder.
December 8, 1917 saw the end of a war.
The sewing machines were silent now, but Teresa Merlo and her companions were not without work. They taught catechism to youngsters while they themselves attended theology classes conducted by Father Alberione.
Yes is Forever, by the Daughters of St. Paul, Copyright © 1981, Daughters of St. Paul. |
Teresa Merlo reflected, "Here I am dreaming being an apostles of the press and I've never even seen a printing machine." She chuckled to herself and then reflected, "We need a father and protector. How good it is to have St. Paul on our side. He is really the master of our house. Somehow he will make up for all that we lack."