Maria Giuseppa Rossello

On August 10, 1837, with a few companions, including Angela and Domenica Pescio and Paolina Barla, Benedetta Rossello opened a first house in Savona, in a rented dwelling. On October 22, 1837, she took the habit and the religious name of Maria Giuseppa. The new congregation received the name Figlie di Nostra Signora della Misericordia (Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy), placed under the patronage of the Virgin of the Marian sanctuary of Savona, and dedicated to the instruction of poor young girls and the assistance of the sick. Elected Superior General in 1840, she deployed a considerable work. From 1842 to 1855, the institute spread throughout Liguria; she multiplied free popular schools in Voltri, Sant'Ilario, Porto Maurizio, and elsewhere. In 1858, she acquired the Doria Lamba palace in Savona and opened a House of Providence there for the re-education of young girls. Concerned for the most destitute, she also opened a home for poor seminarians and sent sisters to Rome and Magliano Sabina. In 1875, a first group of religious sisters left for Buenos Aires, initiating the expansion of the institute in South America.

The spirituality of Maria Giuseppa Rossello combines unlimited trust in Divine Providence, a tender devotion to the Virgin and to Saint Joseph, and an eminently practical sense of charity. Her spiritual physiognomy is entirely summarized in the motto she transmitted to her daughters: "Cuore a Dio, mani al lavoro" ("The heart to God, the hands to work"). Far from opposing contemplation and action, she saw in the concrete service of the poor, the sick, and abandoned young girls the very expression of her union with God. Her charity knew few limits: she concerned herself with the redemption of young girls reduced to slavery, the rehabilitation of street girls, the free instruction of poor children, and the welcoming of seminarians without resources. This alliance of interiority and practical efficiency, joined to her humility as a potter's daughter who became a foundress, earned her a reputation for holiness very early on, both among her religious sisters and among the population of Savona and Liguria, which was confirmed after her death by the influx of devotions at her tomb.

The cause for the beatification of Maria Giuseppa Rossello was introduced in Rome in 1924. The recognition of two miracles, obtained on behalf of religious sisters of her institute, led to her beatification by Pope Pius XI on November 6, 1938. The approval of two new miracles, attributed to her intercession—notably the healings deemed miraculous of Teresa Rocchi in De Negri and of Pietro Molinari—permitted her canonization, celebrated by Pope Pius XII on June 12, 1949, in the Vatican Basilica. At the time of her canonization, the congregation she had founded numbered approximately three thousand religious sisters spread across more than two hundred and sixty houses in Italy and America. Her liturgical feast is set for December 7, the anniversary of her death in Savona in 1880. Her relics are venerated in the chapel of the motherhouse of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy, in Savona.

The legacy of Maria Giuseppa Rossello continues through the congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy, which she left at her death in 1880, rich with several dozen houses. The institute continued its expansion in Italy, in South America, and then in other regions of the world, remaining faithful to the dual educational and hospital vocation of its founder. Leo XIII granted the congregation the decree of praise in 1900, and Pius X definitively approved its constitutions in 1904. The motto 'The heart to God, the hands to work' continues to inspire the schools and social works placed under the patronage of the saint. The daughter of a potter, attached all her life to the work of clay learned from her father, Maria Giuseppa Rossello is honored as the patron saint of the ceramists of Liguria, a region whose earthenware industry is ancient and renowned. Her main sanctuary remains the motherhouse in Savona, where her relics are kept and venerated, a place of pilgrimage for the faithful and the religious of her spiritual family.