St. Maria de Mattias

Life

Maria De Mattias was born on 4 February 1805 at Vallecorsa, the southernmost town of the Papal States, in the geographical province of Frosinone,. Her family was not without wealth and learning—even if women were forbidden to study—nor did it lack a deep Christian faith.

Through dialog with her father, Maria learned and internalized not only the truths of the faith, but also, and especially, episodes and persons of the Sacred Scriptures. Her father read the Scriptures to her when she was still very young, and she developed a great love for Jesus, the Lamb sacrificed for the salvation of humanity. All of this happened while Vallecorsa and surrounding areas were experiencing the tragic period of banditry, 1810-1825. In Maria’s soul, in fact, there was a comparison being made between the human blood poured out in hatred and revenge and the blood of Christ poured out for love, a Blood which saves. 

Without formal education and without outside contacts, because of her social class, Maria spent her childhood and early adolescence withdrawn and focused on her beauty. But when she reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, she began to search for the meaning of her life; she felt a need for a boundless love. Again, it was through dialog with her father, to whom she revealed her interior darkness and through her having asked Our Lady to “give her light”, that God let her experience the beauty of his love in a “mystical” way. It was manifested in its fullness in the Crucified Christ, in Christ who gives all his Blood. 

This experience was the source, the force, and the motivation that brought her to the roads of Italy “to make known to everyone the tender love of the Heavenly Father”, as she said, or “the Crucified Love Jesus”. She was convinced that the reformation of society begins in the heart of the person, and that a person becomes transformed when she/he comes to understand how precious each one is in God’s eyes, how much each person is loved…Jesus gave all this Blood to save the human race. 

This had been Maria’s experience; therefore she tried to lead all people, young and adult, to discover what had been revealed to her and changed her. She had also experienced that this transformation is possible for everyone when, in 1822, when she was seventeen, Gaspar Del Bufalo (now “Saint”) went to preach a mission at Vallecorsa. She saw how the townspeople changed. It was that occasion that generated the dream in her heart to do what Fr. Gaspar was doing. 

Under the guidance of one of St. Gaspar’s companions, (now Venerable) Fr. Giovanni Merlini, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters Adorers of the Blood of Christ in Acuto (Frosinone) on 4 March 1834, at the age of twenty-nine. She had been called by the Administrator of Anagni, Bishop Giuseppe Maria Lais, to teach the young girls—she had learned to read and write on her own. 

Maria, however, who nurtured a dream to reform society and the world, did not limit her activity to the school. She also gathered mothers and young boys to catechize them, to encourage them to love Jesus and to teach them to live Christian lives, according to their state. The men, to whom she could not speak according to the customs of the time, went spontaneously to listen to her, even in hiding. The shepherds, abandoned to their own resources, asked to be instructed by her, even after sundown. People flocked to the religious functions to listen to the teacher. 

Thus, Maria, from the timid and introverted girl that she was, had become a preacher who attracted little girls, adults, the simple and the learned, lay persons and priests. It was because, when she spoke about Jesus and the mysteries of the faith, it was as though she had seen these realities, personally. Her consuming desire was that “not even one drop of the Divine Blood would be lost”; that it would reach all sinners to purify them and so that, washed in that river of mercy, they would rediscover the right way to peace and union among people.

This zeal was caught by many young women and, through them, Maria De Mattias was able to open about seventy communities during her lifetime, three of which were in Germany and England. Almost all were in small isolated towns of Central Italy, except for Rome, to which she was called by Pius IX for the San Luigi Hospice and for the school of Civitavecchia. 

Maria De Mattias life was one lived with the one desire of “giving pleasure to Jesus” who had stolen her heart in her youth, and in a joyful commitment to save “the dear neighbor” from ignorance regarding the mystery of God’s love for humanity. All of this led her not to spare her energies; she did not give up when faced with disappointments or difficulties; she always worked in deep communion with the local and universal Church, and for love of Her. 

Maria De Mattias died at Rome on 20 August 1866 and was buried in Rome’s Verano Cemetery, according to the desire of Pope Pius IX, who chose a tomb for her and commissioned a bas-relief on it depicting the vision of Ezechiel: “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord”.

Her reputation for holiness remained alive after her death. The process for her beatification began thirty years later, culminating in that blessed event 1 October 1950, when Pius XII pronounced her “Blessed.” During the Consistory of 7 March 2003, Pope John Paul II set 18 May 2003 as the date for her canonization.

Source: https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20030518_de-mattias_en.html

Scripture: I Peter 1:16-21

Beloved, thus says the Lord: “You will be holy, because I am holy.”
If you invoke as Father him who judges impartially
according to each one’s works,
conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning,
realizing that you were ransomed from your futile conduct,
handed on by your ancestors,
not with perishable things like silver or gold
but with the precious blood of Christ
as of a spotless unblemished Lamb.
He was known before the foundation of the world
but revealed in the final time for you,
who through him believe in God
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are in God.

Writings

(Year A) We are called to work in the vineyard of Jesus Crucified. For the triumph of his mercy and to show his infinite love for us, our divine Redeemer Jesus Christ shed all his precious Blood with great suffering and humiliation, as price of salvation and of glory. He gave it all, he gave it for all, and he does not stop giving it. His Blood is a fountain, or rather, a life-giving river available to all. It springs up and flows on unendingly for all the children of Adam and remains  with them, accompanying them every moment of their life on earth to make them holy and to bring them to eternal joy of life in heaven. This lowly Congregation, which lives and labors under the glorious title of the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ, must itself take on the shape and pattern of a living image of that divine love with which it was shed, and of which it was and is symbol, expression, measure and pledge. The spirit of this holy work is all charity. We have carved this word in our minds and on our hearts. I repeat: Charity! Charity toward God and our dear neighbor. What a beautiful consolation it is to see the spouses of the divine Lamb, the Adorers of his most precious Blood, motivated by one sole will, the will of God, forming but one heart and one soul, and thus united, making the heavens resound with a hymn of thanksgiving to the infinite goodness of God, while at the same time they offer the Blood of his Son for the reconciliation of heaven with earth, and of earth with heaven. We are called to labor in the vineyard of Jesus Crucified. Oh, what a beautiful honor it is for us to weary ourselves so that souls may be forever happy in the beautiful Jerusalem where Jesus will reunite us one day! Be strong in the vocation you have chosen, which will one day reunite all of us in heaven with Jesus our Spouse, carrying the palm of victory in our hands and chanting the glories of the divine Blood. (Rules and Constitutions)

Musical Selection

Cf. The following canticle composed by St. Maria de Mattias:

Clap your hands, all you peoples,
sing unto God with a voice of jubilation.

For you, God, glorious and mighty,
have shown us mercy.

You have not spared your only Son,
but delivered him up in our behalf.

That you might redeem us
from our sins in Christ’s own blood;

That justified in the blood of Jesus
you might turn your anger from us;

That we who were separated
might be reconciled through the blood of Christ.

O God, my God, what can I render to you
for all the good you have bestowed upon me?

I will take the chalice of salvation,
and I will call upon the power of Christ’s blood.

Sing to Jesus, all you saints,
and make known the memory of his holiness.

For Christ indeed has loved us and washed us in his blood
and has become our helper and redeemer.

May Christ be blessed forever
who has wrought such wonders in us.

Blessed be Jesus for all ages,
and may the heavens and the earth be filled with the praises of his love.

Collect

Father most holy, who in your loving plan adorned Saint Maria De Mattias with exceptional gifts of grace

so that in the Church she might be a witness to the blood of Christ;

grant that, through her intercession,

we may faithfully adore the Lamb without blemish who died and rose for us,

celebrate with thanksgiving the new and eternal covenant in his blood

and with zeal proclaim to all peoples the power of the love of Christ crucified.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.