The Motherly Heart of Sister Maria Troncatti
Salesian Sister to be canonized on October 19
(ANS – Rome – September 25, 2025) – The historical-spiritual-liturgical commission established by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians in view of the canonization of Sister Maria Troncatti (1883-1969), scheduled for October 19, has drawn up a program to get to know the figure of the now-Blessed, her message, and her relevance better – starting from the motto “Mother, missionary, craftswoman of peace and reconciliation.” Thanks to this material, today we deepen precisely the first aspect highlighted by the motto for canonization: the spiritual motherhood of Sister Trocatti, fruit of her encounter with Jesus and her becoming an “auxiliary” among the people.
Hers was a true mother’s heart. All those who needed her were
welcomed without distinction; colonists and Shuar found in her a word of
consolation, a maternal gaze, profound listening to their difficulties. Just as
a mother gives more attention for her weaker child, so Sister Maria had an eye
of predilection for the neediest and most disinherited: women, children,
orphans, people in difficulty were the object of her care. Caring for the sick,
educating, and saving children was her mission. In the course of her life, she gave
everything to others and kept nothing for herself.
Her
true wealth was relationships with people. Even as an older woman, like a real
mother, she was visited by her beloved “children.”
“I can no longer work,” she said, “but I’m happy to stay
with my poor people of the forests. They’re always sick in the hospital; they
always come from far away to visit me.”
Anyone
could find the beloved “abuelita” (grandma) at the door of the Pius XII
Hospital – which she had strongly desired – sitting, now with swollen legs,
ready to welcome everyone. As a Salesian missionary, she had learned to love
Christ passionately, demonstrating the same passionate love in concrete
gestures of every day to the people to whom she was sent.
In
1922, in Nizza Monferrato, the young student Marina Luzzi, at the end of her
life at that time, had foretold to her the land where she would live Da mihi
animas cetera tolle. Sister Maria, who was assisting her as a nurse, had
been perplexed, but a few days later she received the message from Mother General
Catherine Daghero: she would be a missionary in the Ecuadorian jungle. Don
Bosco’s words in the letter from Rome of 1884 would mark her presence among
those people: “It is not enough to love… but they must realize that they are
loved.”
Sister
Maria, with her motherhood, with great humility, with listening and
loving-kindness, won the hearts of all. Her concern was always able to bring
relief. She could not remain indifferent to any kind of suffering, but
immediately brought help and comfort as a “true mother.”
It
is her motherhood that the young Salesian Cosimo Cossu experienced,
recipient of the last letter written by Sister Maria on the eve of her death – which
occurred in Sucua, Ecuador, on August 25, 1969, in an airplane accident – with
the best wishes for his feastday before her departure to Quito.
“I’m
truly happy; for me it is a dream come true, in such a short period of time,”
says Bro. Cossu in an interview, referring to the now imminent canonization. “Never
would I have thought that I would live to see this day in which Sister Maria is
placed by the Lord as an example and guide, a teacher for each one of us.”
On
Sister Troncatti's motherhood, then, the Salesian has no doubts: “From the
beginning of her apostolic life in Ecuador, she was a mother to all the people
she met, especially to the most underprivileged.” And recalling the arson
attack suffered by the Salesians in the Sucua mission, he adds, “She was the
guardian angel in the most difficult moment experienced not by the mission, but
by the entire population of Sucua.”
The
secret of her holiness, he concludes, was her ability to recognize the face of
Jesus in every person she met.
The video with the interview with Bro. Cossu is available
here
For
further information, please visit the site specially set up for the canonization
of Sister Maria Troncatti: https://mariatroncatti.org/
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