WULLENWEBER, MARIA THERESA von. — In religion MARIA DEGLI APOSTOLI, co-foundress of the Sisters of the Divine Saviour, b. at Myllendonk castle 19 Feb. 1833, d. at Rome 25 Dec. 1907.
Having heard a sermon on apostolate and missions, she felt strongly that this was to be her path, and she sought it without delay, but in vain, among the Religious of the Sacred Heart, the Visitandines, the Belgian Sacramentines, and in an attempt to form a new congregation of missionary Sisters. Finally, obtaining a leaflet issued by the founder of the young “Catholic instructive society” (later [1893] the Society of the Divine Saviour), Fr. Francis Jordan, she felt impelled to contact him and join him in Rome, to study the feminine branch to be inserted into the Salvatorian tree. The new family, which had a missionary programme but above all and fundamentally a Catholic one, had its cradle at Tivoli in 1888 and soon moved to Rome, which quickly became the bridgehead for expansion in all directions: Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Assam, the United States, etc. The inevitable difficulties and continual trials only strengthened the foundress in her resolve to distribute every possible good to souls, in caring for the sick at home and in their own hospitals, in schools of every kind, and in charitable works.