MAREOSA. – A city of Judea (Jos. 15, 44) fortified by Rehoboam (II Chron. 11, 8). In the Greek period it was inhabited by Edomites and known under the name of Marisa or Marissa. John Hyrcanus assigned it in 110 BC, but in 63 BC Pompey restored it to the status of a free city. It was destroyed in 40 BC by the Parthians.
Eusebius (Onomast., 130, 10) places it two miles from Eleutheropolis (= Bejt Jibrin), and Bliss identified it with Tell Sandahannah. Here Bliss and Macalister carried out excavations in 1900, finding among other things Ptolemaic coins and two inscriptions concerning Arsinoë and Berenice, wife and mother of Ptolemy IV (222–205). Notable at Tell Sandahannah is a painted tomb (3rd century BC), which, besides bearing several names indicating Greek, Idumaean, Phoenician and Macedonian origins, contains a hunting scene and drawings of various animals. Since 1948 the site has been part of the State of Israel.
MARESCA, Antonio Maria. – Ascetical writer of the Barnabite Order, born at Carovigno (Brindisi) on 24 Nov. 1831, died at Rome on 26 March 1891. He entered the Order in 1853, was ordained priest in 1859, and taught in the colleges of his Order at Teramo, Parma and Bologna. As the first general director of the Apostleship of Prayer in Italy, he began in 1864 at Parma the publication of *Il Messaggero del S. Cuore* (for two years an adaptation of the French *Messager du Sacré-Cœur*), later independent.
In 1887, on the occasion of Leo XIII’s sacerdotal jubilee, he added to *Il Messaggero* the monthly review *Il Devoto del S. Cuore*, a survey of works and devotion to the Sacred Heart, and the *Rosario vivente* in loose sheets which reached a monthly circulation of 30,000 copies.
Among the institutions founded by Fr. Maresca were the Pious Unions of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the ecclesiastical alumni of the Young Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for poor vocations in southern Italy (1874), later closed for lack of funds, the Association of the 33 Years in honour of Jesus (1879), the ardent movement of family consecration and the petition to Pius IX for the consecration of the dioceses of Italy and then of Rome and the world to the Sacred Heart, and the early work for the construction of the votive temple of the Sacred Heart at Castro Pretorio, later continued and completed by the sons of St. John Bosco. Meanwhile, Fr. Maresca handed over his work to his confrere Fr. Vitale, who directed it for a further twenty-five years, more actively and practically; until in 1917 the general direction of the Apostleship of Prayer and of *Il Messaggero*, after the cessation of *Il Devoto*, passed in Italy to the Jesuits, who still maintain it at their church of the Gesù.