VERZERI, Teresa Eustochio, Blessed. - Foundress of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart, b. at Bergamo on 31 July 1801, d. there on 1 March 1852.

From her earliest years she showed an ardent desire to save souls and such good sense and recollection that she later came to be called the woman who was never a child. Yet the road she had to travel was very long and bristling with thorns: having entered, in fact, the Benedictine monastery of S. Grato, she left it six months later because of epilepsy; having re-entered, she left it again after 19 months by order of her director; the third time she was summoned back from it, on the eve of her profession, by the bishop and the director together.

These then (8 Feb. 1831) ordered her to take charge of a school at once and to begin without further ado the new Institute that he had dreamed of for years; to take on the care of the young women who wished to follow her example, to observe, to experiment and to draft the rules of the new Congregation, which was to be called the "Society of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart." The V. carried out the orders to the letter, and God blessed her activity, increasing vocations and the various kinds of houses: boarding schools, schools, shelters, residences. She was beatified on 26 May 1946.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: of the V. there have been published the Lettere, Brescia 1874, and the Libro dei doveri. Documenti di spirito proposti alle Figlie del S. Cuore di Gesù, 3 vols., 3rd ed., Bergamo 1937. - Biographies: C. Arcangeli, Vita della ven. T. E., nob. Verzeri, fondatr. e super. delle Figlie del S. Cuore, 2nd ed., Bergamo 1896; [M. A. Balocchi]. Una donna forte, la b. T. E. V..., ibid. [1946].

Celestino Testore

@incollection{ec12_verzeri_teresa_eustochio_beata, author = {Testore, Celestino}, title = {Verzeri, teresa eustochio, beata}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1311}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/verzeri-teresa-eustochio-beata} }

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Verzeri, Teresa Eustochio, Blessed

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