Homily for the Memorial of
Bl. Maria Troncatti
Aug. 25, 2023
Matt 22: 34-40
Provincial House, New
Rochelle
The 2d great commandment
is like the 1st: “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22: 39).[1]
Bl. Maria Troncatti practiced love of neighbor for her whole life. She did it as a nurse during WWI, when Italian soldiers suffered horrendous casualties on the front with Austria. She did it for 47 years in the Amazon forests of eastern Ecuador—the same region where our confrere Fr. Tom Brown ministered a few years after her death in 1969.
Maria went there in 1922,
already a mature FMA, and she never went back to Italy, giving herself
completely to the native people.
The reading from the
Office today is taken from John Paul II’s encyclical on the missions. The passage seems to have been written with
Bl. Maria in mind: “A commitment to
peace, justice, human rights, and human promotion is also a witness to the
Gospel when it is a sign of concern for persons and is directed toward integral
human development.”[2]
John Paul also speaks of
the rich and fruitful motherhood in the spirit that women religious bring to
their missionary labors.[3] Bl. Maria was with good reason called madrecita buena. She was not only a
catechist and evangelizer on that jungle frontier but also nurse, dentist, and
surgeon. She insisted on the rights of
women and children, and promoted family life.
Finally, when she was well into her 80s and violence was breaking out between the native people and white settlers who were taking advantage of them—and who had burned down the SDB residence because the Salesians were defending the natives—Sister Maria offered her life to Mary Help of Christians for the sake of peace. A few days later, when she and some others were leaving for retreat, their plane crashed on takeoff. Everyone survived except her. As a result of her funeral, the violence dissipated and peace was restored. She had offered her life.
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