Blessed Maria Teresa Fasce, virgin

Though forever associated with St Rita and her shrine in Cascia, Marietta Fasce was born near Genoa in 1881. She was involved in an Augustinian parish in the city and shared the excitement at the canonization of St Rita in 1900. Attracted by the story of Rita, Marietta decided she wanted to become a nun in the convent at Cascia. At the time this was a distant and very poor convent and neither her family nor the community of Cascia felt that this was the right choice for a young lady from a well-off, middle class background in a very different part of Italy. Like St Rita, Marietta had to be persistent and eventually she got her wish, entering the Cascia convent in June 1906.

Marietta made her first profession at Christmas, 1907, taking the more formal name Maria Teresa. These were difficult times for the Augustinian convent and Sister Maria Teresa got permission to spend a time of reflection with her family before her final profession in March 1912. She was soon working for the needed renewal of the community and was appointed Mistress of Novices in 1914, then Abbess in 1920. She was to remain in this position until her death in 1947, having been re-elected nine times by unanimity. In time she would be known simply as «the Mother».

Sister Maria Teresa was always a very spiritual person intent upon promoting the religious life of her contemplative Augustinian community. She suffered from bad health, particularly from breast cancer for which she underwent several painful operations and which she liked to refer to as her «hidden treasure», not unlike St Rita’s thorn, and from which she was to die. «May God’s will be done» was a favourite saying. During her long term as Abbess the Cascia community increased threefold in Sisters.

It is surprising to realise how a contemplative religious in such poor health could have been such an active person and achieved so much.

With great foresight and determination «Mother» set about developing the shrine of St Rita and she was the principle motor behind the spreading of devotion to the «Saint of the Impossible». A new shrine was built – in the difficult circumstances of World War II and consecrated in the year of Mother Teresa’s death, 1947 – the convent was renovated, an orphanage was built and organised and a monthly bulletin, «From the Bees to the Roses», was launched to spread the devotion to St Rita and attract funds for the further development of shrine and town of Cascia. Hospital, seminary, retreat centre and pilgrim hotels would follow in due course and Cascia would become the important religious centre it is today. St Rita remains at the centre of the work but without Bl. Teresa it might never have happened, at least not at this time and in this way.

Maria Teresa Fasce was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 12th October, 1997, fifty years after her death in 1947. It is fitting that her remains are preserved in St Rita’s Sanctuary in Cascia in a way similar to her patroness, in a glass urn in the new chapel in the lower Basilica.