Saint Maria de Mattias
Adorer-Apostle of the Precious Blood

Maria's early life

Maria de Mattias was born and baptized on February 4, 1805 in Vallecorsa, a small village in the mountains of central Italy, about 50 miles southeast of Rome. Her father, Giovanni de Mattias, came from a family that was prominent in the village and relatively well-to-do. Her mother, Ottavia de Angelis, was the second wife of Giovanni de Mattias. Maria was their seventh child, but only the second one to survive into adolescence. Maria was born into a period of constant political turmoil. The small kingdoms and republics on the Italian peninsula were constantly at war with one another and with invaders from France and Austria. Politics and religion intermixed, as the pope was also the ruler of the territories in central Italy called the Papal States. In the face of economic uncertainty and lack of steady work, young men who found it easier to live by banditry joined those who had fled to the mountains when their armies were defeated or to avoid being forced into the army of the current occupying power. The breakdown of civil authority and the cruelty of both the bandits and soldiers had a tremendous impact on all facets of life in the mountain villages. The fear of drive-by shootings and car-jackings and violent robbery and rape in large US cities is a loose parallel.

Maria was confirmed at age ten, and made her first communion a year later. She wanted to receive the eucharist often, but her confessor permitted her to do so only once a month. One day in 1821, when she was sixteen, Maria's glance was drawn away from the mirror to the picture of Our Lady nearby. Maria heard the Lady speak to her, saying "Come to me." Maria began to converse with Mary and to pray for her help. She also began to read, devouring the many spiritual books that the family had.

Maria encounters the Missionaries of the Precious Blood

In Lent of 1822, a Precious Blood mission team came to Vallecorsa, led by the founder of the Missionaries himself, Gaspar del Bufalo. For three weeks, the whole town was caught up in the drama of a Precious Blood mission, with its processions and sermons on both themes that terrified--death, judgment, punishment, hell--and themes that consoled and gave hope--God's love, mercy and forgiveness, Mary's compassion, heaven. Gaspar's preaching on the love of God, who sent his Son to pour out his blood that all might be saved, and his reflections on the prodigal touched Maria as deeply as his preaching on hell. Maria heard Gaspar's invitation to imitate Jesus by giving our lives for our brothers and sisters as addressed directly to her, but she was uncertain how to do this or whom she could trust for guidance. Who were these Missionaries of the Precious Blood, whose preaching moved not only Maria and all of Vallecorsa, but many throughout the Papal States? Gaspar del Bufalo and Francesco Albertini had been exiled from Rome in 1810, because they refused to take the oath to Napoleon, who had seized the Papal States. During their exile, Albertini shared with Gaspar his dream: a community of priests and brothers, a community of sisters, and a range of lay associations, all motivated by the same spirituality and sharing in the same mission: to enliven people's faith through devotion to the blood of Christ. When their exile came to an end in 1814, Albertini was made a bishop, and Gaspar and his colleagues opened their first house of mission on August 15, 1815. While the missionaries and their work flourished, finding a group of women who truly shared in the vision and mission and a town that was committed to providing education and formation for girls and women was to take many years more. In 1824, Gaspar sent Giovanni Merlini to preach the Lenten mission and to supervise the founding of a House of Mission in Vallecorsa. Merlini and his team put a great deal of effort into establishing a series of associations for girls, women, boys, men, and priests, involving the whole town in the work of the mission house. Maria felt drawn to Merlini, to confer with him, but she had scruples and doubts even here--she worried that her attraction to the dynamic young missionary was a temptation! She finally approached him, and was completely at ease. Maria's conversations with Merlini were the beginning of a relationship that lasted for the rest of her life.

From the time her met her, Merlini wondered if Maria could be the person to found the community of women. Meanwhile, he put Maria in charge of the Daughters of Mary, the association for girls. Maria began to invite the young women of Vallecorsa into her home on Sunday afternoons for prayer and devotions; sometimes Maria would speak from her heart as well as leading them in prayer and adoration. Soon, older women of the town began coming as well. Gaspar supported Merlini's work with Maria, and delegated him to be her spiritual director.  

Maria prepares for her missionary work

During the long wait for companions and a suitable place to found a community and school, Maria began to wonder if she had been presumptuous, if God was displeased with her for imagining that she could found and lead a community. She considered entering a cloister, as she had before encountering the missionaries. When she asked Gaspar himself about this, his compelling response was that she could find holiness anywhere, that her urgency to save souls did not mean that she should withdraw to a monastery. Finally, near the end of 1833, the place and conditions were right, in Acuto.

Maria founds the community

Maria's plans for Acuto included far more than a school. Drawing on Albertini's writings, the Fundamental Articles, she envisioned a complete program of devotions, spiritual formation, and retreats, educating women and girls in the faith and its practice--a mission house for women directed by women. The school opened on March 4, 1834. The people of Acuto were enthusiastic and responsive.

What characterized the community from the beginning was its distinctive combination of adoration and apostleship. A daily hour of adoration, to which lay auxiliaries were soon invited, anchored their lives. In these hours, fifteen minute reflections by one of the sisters alternated with fifteen minute periods of silence. When confessors would allow it, Maria encouraged the sisters to receive communion daily, a daring intimacy and opportunity for nourishment we sometimes take for granted, but a radical breakthrough and break with the piety and practice of the time. Meditating on the decades of the rosary and Jesus's seven sheddings of blood in the chaplet of the Precious Blood framed their days. When Merlini sent him the draft of Maria's rule, Gaspar commented that the lifestyle of the sisters should not be austere, because of their heavy apostolic work.
 

Teacher and Preacher

Word of what Maria was doing spread throughout the villages and towns of central Italy. There was great need for schools for the children and catechetical instruction for both children and adults. Mayors and bishops besieged Maria with requests for teachers. As often as she could be away from Acuto and Rome, Maria made arduous journeys to visit the small communities scattered throughout the mountains. Many of these places had no resident priests, so instructions and devotions led by the sisters were the only regular source of spiritual life. Maria describes her visit to Vallerotonda in 1860: "giving instructions to the girls and married women; in the evening there are about a hundred, but on Sundays there are around three hundred, not counting the men who stand outside." Maria preached from balconies and standing on tables in town squares. In her letters to Merlini, Maria expressed doubts about speaking in public, but she also reported her satisfaction at the number of people seeking confession and communion in response.

In his letters, Merlini often urged Maria to take care of herself. Maria struggled against illness all her life. She suffered from asthma, and often succumbed to fevers. Even when she was physically exhausted, Maria was full of energy for the work and the travels it required. The rapid growth of the community, the scarcity of resources, and the press of the people's needs often resulted in friction and disputes that Maria had to resolve.

Maria's death and legacy

When Maria died on August 20, 1866, in Rome, she was 61 years old. The community had over fifty schools in Italy, and had spread to Austria, Germany, and England. The missionaries and the adorers wanted to have her buried in Santa Maria in Trivio, the missionaries' mother church. Although Pope Pius IX did not grant permission for Maria to be buried in Santa Maria, he himself purchased a tomb for her. Maria was declared blessed on October 1, 1950 and canonized a saint on May 18, 2003. Her feast is celebrated on the day of her birth and baptism, February 4.