The stars underfoot…
“what joy
we’ll experience one day,
my dear sisters,
when we’ll have
the stars underfoot”
Pag 51
Road dust...The star underfoot
The adventure in image of Theresa Gabrieli
Foto n.1- the dream
Foto n.2- in family
Foto n.3-Theresa at school
Foto n.4-and at work
Foto n.5- a particular encounter
Foto n. 6-the gift
Foto n.7-...the night between 21-22 may 1869
Foto n.8 niente
Foto n.9-Theresa is the first sister of the Poverelle
Foto n.10-niente
Foto n.11 Theresa with the first sisters
Foto n.12 poor with the little and poor
Foto n.13...in harmony and peace
Foto n.14...and in joyful and humble simplicity
Foto n.15-at the beginning and the following years.
Foto n.16- mother and sister of the little and poor
The stars
underfoot…
biographicalprofile ofTheresa Gabrieli
the first of the Poverelle Sisters
The stars
underfoot...
I don’t know if you have ever happened to find yourselves lying down on the ground, on the green grass, at dusk on a day full of windand, looking up in the air, to be able to enjoy the sight of the sky that, is slowly filling with stars.
And even hear in the airthe tolling of the bell of Hail Mary...I assureyou that a particular and deep sensation can be felt!
You can feel clearly you are far from the bright vault of the skybut,at the same time, you can almost sense that you can walk on the blue mantle that keeps the stars together.
The first biographer ofTheresa Gabrieli at the height of her maturity and experience, advances a sentence that is suggestive of something like that: “what a joy we’ll experience one day, my dear sisters, when we’ll have the stars underfoot”.
A natural gift that seizes the deep harmony of the creation or a mature expressionof a faith that indicates, beyond the daily efforts of living, the joy and intensity of a meeting that satisfies and fills with happiness?
Maybe in Gabrieli there is thecoexistence of both the aspects, in a serene and harmonious balance that makes her experience of life curious and interesting.
But where does this woman, humble and wise,fragile andstrong, sweet and vigorous at the same time, come from?
What are her origins, what are the ways she has foreseen and gone along, with courage and determination, during herlong and tireless existence?
At the beginninga dream…
Not hers,for a start, but one of her father.
Yes, Arcangelo Giuseppe Gabrielidreamt a lot in his long life.
Not all his dreams came true.
But some of them,however, have opened some ways that have gone beyond his wishes and his expectations. But it is like this. No one can bridle dreams. Neither at their birth, nor least of all in their realization!
Arcangelo Giuseppe was born on April 25th, 1796.
Theechoesof the French revolution perhaps are not yetin the public domain, but there is no doubt that one of those three very flaunted nouns found some place in his heart: freedom.
Of course, a freedom that is not meant as the revolutionaries do, but a freedom that is attained in the persevering daily duty and that finds its ideal ground in the always new and fresh sap of the Gospel.
About him we know that he workedas horticulturist and lived in S. Lucia Vecchia street, now S. Lucia district, north of the United Hospitals of Bergamo. Howeverhe had a culture that was greater than the one of those who, at that time, like him, earned the bread for one’s family working the ground.
Hestudied going to the seminary for a while, without being able to continue. Maybe this is just one of his dreams that could not come true.
On February 4th, 1819 he marriesLucia Morelli, born in Stezzano, on March 28th, 1802, young woman of modest conditions, but solid and full of virtues, of a sweet and reserved nature, prudent and far-sighted at the same time. From their union seven daughters were born and one son, the fifth, who will live only few days.
His times are hard and difficult like almost for everybody: poverty is the norm even in Gabrieli family, a poverty faced industriously, lived with dignity and propriety even in the suffering of untimely deaths.
WhenTheresawas born on September 13th, 1837, her parents had already taken three of their children to the cemetery: Giovanni, dead in 1833, only two days after his birth; Maria Luigia, six years old, andArcangela,four, dead in March 1835,within only two weeks.
SoTheresa finds herself with two sisters, Maria Annunciata and Giovanna,of 17 and 15 years older than herself and with two other sisters Angela Maria and Maria Elisabetta younger of 3 and 8 years.
We know that Maria Annunciata married Magri Alessandro and that the second sister Giovanna, very young married Locatelli Pietrofrom which she had a son who died still in his youth, on December 21st,1887,in concept of holiness, killed by a slow disease while he was at the seminar. The two youngest sisters, Angela Maria and Elisabetta, will be taken to marriage byTheresaherself, in a very serious and difficult moment of her life.
But let’s go back to father Giuseppe’s dream again.
The priest FatherLuigi Frigeni, who will write the first biography ofTheresa Gabrieli, tells us how,from his youth, Giuseppe Gabrieli had in his heart an ideal of married life that, with the fidelity of love and the sensitivityto life, recognized as a particular grace and blessing from heaven, the gift of a creature to consecrate to the Lord.
People of faith and of fervent and solidpietyas they were, surely the married couple shared this hope;probably in the evening they met, several times, round the table, evenkneeling on a chair, praying together in order that this “blessing” could come true.
Their times weren’t easy times. In the town ofBergamoin the Nineteenth century, poverty, and famine at intervals, were tryingsorely the peasant and urban populations who often had to emigrate to survive. The main resourcesof the Province of Bergamowere constituted by the textile industries (silk, cotton, linen, hemp, mixed yarns), by agriculture, sericulture and sheep breeding.
In this contextTheresawas born and grewup; her environment is lacking in material goods, but rich in human relations and faith.
And in this context she learns how to love the Lord and to recognize him present in the events of her large and hard workingfamily.
Gabrieli’s house,in fact, is a coming and going of people; or rather, more than a house it looks like a market.
So Theresalearns to recognize people, to be silent and talk in due time, to weigh choices or judgements with prudence. She learns, to seeclosely people’s poverty and misery, to lookupon everybody with favourand, at the same time, to consider appreciations and insinuations critically.
Father Giuseppe seems to want toconcentratethe best hopes on hisTheresa, who from her youth proves herselfintelligent and wise. She is endowed with open mind, with a never satisfied thirst for knowledge, for experiencing and investigating. She can reflect on herself and find the courage and humilityto call feelings, emotions and reactions by name.
Everything seems to pave the way for a serene and positive future.
Hard and difficult times appear on the way of Gabrieli family: father Giuseppe falls seriously ill; the work with vegetablesand their salebecome more arduous and difficult.
Mother Lucia tries everything in order not to let thesituation weigh on her husband and on her daughters, but the moment is not easy.
The sorrow cuts furrows always difficult to keep and face.And it is not easy, even for a mature and strong woman like her,to find the courage to“ be near”, to support hope, while the spectre of a final separation frompeople who are loved, knocks on the door of still young existences, that are not at all used to suffer. Theresais 15 years old; Angela is 13 and Elisabetta is only 7.
In this context of trepidation and distress, mother Lucia is called also to inherit a dream.
Yes, father Giuseppe, even in the drowsiness of disease, keeps on dreaming.
And this dream becomes his testament.
She listens to him, hiding in her heart apprehension, astonishment and bewilderment.
In a whisper, but alsoin a sure and resolute tone, father Giuseppe tells his wife: “When I die, take a special care ofTheresa. I don’t know, but I have almost a feeling that something good has to come out of her. Sell the cow, and with the money that you will get put Theresa into a boarding school and make her study. I have just dreamt a garden with a lot of beautiful flowers… Some of them beautiful and blooming, others more plain and less beautiful … Theresawas walking among them, and was watering and cleaning up some of them, hoeing the ground around others and weeding…I don’t know what to think, but if the Lord should want something from her … Do as I told you”.
Histestamentwas really unusual, if we consider that in Nineteenth century going to a school was a privilege for few and certainly it wasn’tpossible for the poor and above all for girls, to study after the elementary school!
Father Giuseppe, so much loved and esteemed inside and outside the family,dies in1852.
This unexpected and grave event plunges his wife and his daughters, still young and weak, in a deep sorrow.
Many years laterTheresawill say to hersisters:“We must always bless the Lord and thank him because he is our Father and surely everything is for our best”,but now for her, young and full of ideals, it is very difficult to recognize a good in so great a suffering and separation…
The solidity of mother Lucia’s faith enablesthe small family unit to look ahead, in spite of everything, with confidence.
Not only vegetables…
The cow has been sold. Mother Lucia retireswith her remaining daughters toPradello street where, working hard in the small rented vegetable garden, she can up keep her family, poorly but decorously.
Theresagoes into the Institute of Canossian Mothers, in Rocchetta street, inwardly pleased of her father’s preference, but also worried not to waste one little bit of the received gift, a gift witha very high price .
Here she studies hard; the“dream” that enables her to have a culture is too important not to make the most of each opportunity of learning, knowing and preparing for life.And confirmations are not late in coming: after two years, in the document that acknowledges her qualified for teaching in elementary schools, the eleven marks received express nine“very good” and two “good”.
Her father Giuseppe can be proud of her, his insight had beenfar-sighted.
The meeting with the Canossian Daughters of Charity leaves a mark on the life ofTheresa. During the long hours passed in the cloister, in study and prayer, the wish of giving herself completely and for ever to the Lord makes its way in her more and more.
A dream in the dream? Maybe…
As time goes by, more the call to a religious life becomes clear in her mind and in her heart.She thinks over and over for a long time.She prays that this is not an illusion.
She asks her confessor for some light and advice.
The way seems to be tracedmore and more sharply and purely: her vocation isabout devoting herself to the Lord among the Canossian Daughters of Charity.
The sky seems to come closer, the stars seem to outline clearly the way to go.
Delaying as a matter of duty,
and for love
But the conditions of poverty of her family don’t allow her to realize herproject at once: her hands are still needed to balance the poor family budget!
The young woman doesn’t lose heart. She is awareof havingtowards her family a debt of gratitude for the opportunity she has been given -uncommon thing for a woman ofthat time -toacquire a qualification ; she acceptsthe situation with serene mind and a firm and resolute will and after receiving the certificate of senior teacher on November 24th, 1854, she goes back into the family to resume her place growing and selling vegetables. Now she has got some more toolsto continue her trade in the best possible way…for the restshe is waiting hopefully and calmly: if the Lord wants, he knows how make himself heard!
In life and in everyday commitments, Theresaproves a very good, attentive and wise dealer. The formation she has received enables herto understand more deeplyevents and people. In her, the ability to have a project-idea that enables her to puteveryday simple actions in a greater design, a project that gives colour and hope to her journey, isgoing to become clearer and clearer.
For the moment, this project-ideais attributed to each day: to sell products in a sufficient quantity as to makethe essential for the family. But it is an ability that will be precious later, when the project has theoutlines of an experience of life according to the Gospel and in the coordinates of a Charism thatcan cast, the one who accepts and lives it, towards the outposts of charity and of the unreserved gift.
In the commitment of work and in the daily contact with people,Theresalearns to know herself better, to keep watch on her own feelings, to understand well who she is and what she wants from life. In shops or at the market, people usually comment on thepersonality and the aptitude aspects of the one who is in front of them. Theresa, listening and working, learns to know how people think, what they think of her and of what happens; hers is an excellent vantage point to understand history and to feel the state of things.
With the passing of days and commitments Theresa matures the experience of managing and running the house: at first collaborating with her mother and then,when mother Lucia dies on July 17th, 1863, she becomes head of the family.
She experiences for herself the importance of being able to wait, of persevering in a choice even when its realization is announced to be far and uncertain; of not wanting at once all that is desired, to give space and love to those that life trusts to her care and attention.
It is natural that such a woman can’t go unnoticed in the district and in town; a lot of young men look at her with favour and would be happy to have her as a wife, butTheresadoesn’t notice them.
Fervent Christian, praiseworthy teacher
At the time when Theresa obtains her qualificationand in the following years of her Christian commitment, Mgr. Pierluigi Speranza is Bishop of Bergamo. In a controversial and difficult period (1854 – 1879),heleads the diocese with wisdom and strength, keeping upright the fidelity to the Pope and to the sound doctrine of the Church.
His Church, closed around the Bishop/Pope hierarchy, bases everything on a very well-kept parish, in dispute with the general atmosphere of the period; his Church is paying a particular attention to the complete education of youth, the most bewildered and exposed to danger in the passing of history. His pastoral work fosters the statement of a very deep religiosity, certainly supported and backed by the structures, but also cleverly rooted in the mind and heart of peopleby catechesis and by othertools. A religiosity, in other words, that impregnates itself the same social life.
In 1855 Mgr. Speranza publishes“The declaration of Christian Doctrine”, a kind of “reasoned catechism”. The truths of faith are known and explained here by the method of asking and answeringby simple everyday language, a language that is understood even by those who had little familiarity with school.
And they were the majority.
When this text appearsTheresahad been a teacher for one year; she goes to the parish and teaches catechism. Without any doubtshe knows, studies and uses this Catechismsince its first appearance and uses it as a sure guide for her educational activity among the youth.
The Church of this period, in dispute with a culture that tries to win over the masses and is typically secularist, strongly proposes the values of the Gospel: against the exaltation of freedom and independence, it declares and strongly proposes obedience; against the exaltation of man who wants to do everything without God, acting as an absolute protagonist of history, it reaffirms God’s supremacy and the value of relying on Providence;against the will of emancipation from any ascendant, itrefers to the value of mortification and ascesis.
On April 4th, 1861, Bishop Speranza in a pastoral letter, that isboth vigorous and heartfelt gathers his believers against the rampant evil. He writes among other things: “All those who have faith and a sound mind must do their best to check evil that threatens youth”.