I have come to realize that many saints have waited for many things and that brings me comfort that in my journey I too experience waiting and I can pray to the saints to help me in this waiting period.
Blessed Maria Teresa of Jesus was born on May 15, 1825 in Arezzo, Italy as Maria Scrilli. As a child she was bedridden for 2 years from an unknown illness. She was cured from a vision of Saint Fiorenzo and it was from then that she felt a call to religious life. One May 28, 1846 she entered the monastery of Saint Magdalene de'Pazzi in Florence. Even though she loved the cloistered life, she soon realized it was not her calling and left after 2 months. She entered a Carmelite tertiary and took the name of Maria Teresa of Jesus. She began teaching to the local girls and in turn started a small school for them. She was looking for a place to start a formal school and she was asked by a town council to take over a local school and then formed a religious institute. One October 15, 1854 she founded the Sisters of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but 5 years later she was ordered for the school to be dissolved and the school became secularized. It was here that she waited--19 years--on March 18, 1878 that Mother Maria was able to resurrect her community in Florence and started a school, boarding house, and Marian association. It was here that she lived her vocation of teaching, parish work, and visiting the sick. Mother Maria died on November 14, 1889 in Florence of natural causes. She was beatified on October 8, 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI and she is awaiting canonization.
Today there are about 250 sisters in Italy, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel, Poland, Canada, Philippines, United States and the Czech Republic where they teach, catechize, and care for the sick and aged.
Here is the homily of Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins at her beatification.
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