Wüllenweber, Maria Theresia von

WÜLLENWEBER, Maria Theresia von. - In religion Maria degli Apostoli, co-foundress of the Sisters of the Divine Savior, b. at Myllendonk Castle on 19 Feb. 1833, d. in Rome on 25 Dec. 1907.

Having heard talk, in a sermon, of the apostolate and of the missions, she felt keenly that this must be her path, and she sought it without delay, but in vain, among the Religious of the Sacred Heart, the Visitandines, the Sacramentines of Belgium, and in an attempt to form a new Congregation of missionary Sisters. Finally, having come into her hands a leaflet published by the founder of the young "Catholic Instructive Society" (later [1893] the Society of the Divine Savior), Fr. Francis Jordan, she felt impelled to communicate with him and to join him in Rome, in order to study there the female institution to be grafted onto the tree of the Salvatorians. The new family, which had a missionary program but above all and fundamentally a catechetical one, had its cradle at Tivoli in 1888 and soon moved to Rome, which quickly became a bridgehead from which to launch out in every direction: Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Assam, the United States, etc. The inevitable difficulties and continual trials only strengthened in the foundress her fortitude in facing them, in order to distribute all possible good among souls through assistance to the sick at home and in their own hospitals, in schools of every kind, and in charitable works.

Celestino Tentore