1. 1
1st day: 14th August 2014
THE FIRST ONE AMONG THE FIRST FMA MISSIONARIES
Angela Vallese was born on January 8th, 1854 in Lu Monferrato, a small
village but one that was prolific in giving many vocations to the Church. Angela
would carry in her heart the memory of a special grace throughout her whole
life: that of being born during the year of the proclamation of the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception.
The family was materially poor; however they did not lack Christian
values and great affection.
At six years of age Angela went to school, but after four years she had
to leave because the family needed her financial help; so Angela learned the
trade of a seamstress and challenged poverty by offering the gift of her work to her dear ones.
Angela attended the church of her village, along with her parents, as did many other children.
She was about seven when two missionaries came from far away to talk to the people about the Work
of the Propagation of the Faith and the Holy Childhood. Angela listened to everything with eagerness,
and was impressed by the fact that there were people who did not yet know Jesus, and that there were
children in need of help. She was the first to volunteer to help in taking up the collection, imagining
how that money would be used to bring Jesus to the poor, to children, who were neglected and left to
die without the possibility of getting to know Him and without being baptized.
Perhaps because of her small, angelic aspect, people gave her more offerings than to her
companions. In her heart, there was one spontaneous prayer: “Lord, allow me to save many souls, as
many as the number of coins that I have collected!”
At that moment Angela understood clearly what she wanted to do when she grew up; an
intimate desire to make Jesus known, and to lead many people to Him was growing in her.
Despite being only a child, she was not afraid of sacrifice, giving herself to the heavier work.
She also became a catechist. The priest, seeing the good material she was made of, entrusted to her the
teaching of catechism to her peers and some others who were even older than herself.
At the age of fifteen she started attending the group of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate. She
knew how to combine everyday life with the commitment to virtue and devotion, to the prayer and
meditation, that she recommended with great affection even to her younger sisters for whom she was
caring.
Then the day came when Angela got to know Don Bosco! She was twenty years of age when the
Saint opened a house for the Sisters in Mornese. Angela did not hesitate: “There’s where the Lord
wants me; I feel it.”
On 15th November 1875, she reached Mornese and got to know the Institute of the FMA that
had been started just three years earlier. Mother Mazzarello welcomed this young woman with her
usual humble, maternal simplicity, and saw in Angela’s eyes a reflection of innocence and a treasure of
virtue and wisdom. The steps were quick: May 24th 1876, marked her entrance into the novitiate, and
on August 29th of the same year, she made her first profession. A year later, on November 14th 1877, at
the age of 23, she left for America, as the guide of the first FMA missionary expedition, full of
missionary enthusiasm, and infected by the air that she had breathed in Mornese. There was where
“the Lord granted her the grace of saving as many souls as the coins she had collected” as a child.

2. 2
Angela – a strong woman, with great faith and an intense apostolic fire – was first Superior in
Montevideo-Villa Colòn (Uruguay) and then in Argentina and Chile. She was appointed Visitor, for 25
years, to the Houses opened in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
In her 36 years of missionary life, Angela was able to translate the Gospel into life. “The one
who is in command, be as the one who serves”... this was the motto of a FMA, a woman with rolled up
sleeves, tireless, ready to face long journeys, solitude, detachment, poverty, strong winds and all kinds
of difficulties. A woman of blessing, capable of showering blessings on a lost and distant land, which
had become the homeland of her heart: “Oh, blessed Tierra del Fuego!”
Let us pray with sr. Angela Vallese
Oh blessed, immense sea…
Oh blessed Patagonia, oh distant Tierra del Fuego, oh astonishing Magellanean Strait, oh fertile land of
America, a dream land, a mission land!
You have been the “holy land” of the charismatic origins of the “new continent”. In you, the seed gave fruit
and extended its roots everywhere.
My heart glorifies you, o Lord,
- For those who departed and those who arrived;
- For the courage of the long line of missionaries who have loved and given their lives without
measure;
- For the good seed fallen on a good and generous soil, the seed of the Word;
- For your presence, o Lord, helping us to open new roads to the proclamation of the Living Good
New to everyone;
- For the presence of Mary, the Star of Evangelization and the Mother who accompanied us and
showed us the places where you wanted to be known, announced and loved.
O Lord, even today you continue to call new lines of missionaries and invite all to sail away, to proceed
towards the open sea, to reach new lands, to arrive to other people, to new cultures, where there are brothers
and sisters waiting for you, waiting for your Word, for signs of your presence through daring and joyous
FMA.
Lord, this is the new time, your time, because your time is the present, and you call the FMA to dare, to
walk, to go out towards the peripheries of the world and to cast the nets, together with you. May they start
off along the roads of a renewed, apostolic dynamism, and together step on with firmness and decision:
“We too will board this boat, your wind is already blowing on the sails.
We will sail where you want, together with you...”
Today, like yesterday, may the FMA, touched by the Holy Spirit like the Apostles and the first missionaries,
plough the oceans to bring the seed of the Charism to other lands and help new buds of sanctity to flourish in
many countries and cultures. Today, like yesterday, may they answer your missionary call with joy: Here I
am, Lord!
“Here I am, Lord, I come to you, my King, may your will be done.
Here I am, Lord, I come to you my God, mould my heart and I will live of you.
If you want, Lord, send me and I will announce your name.
I will be as you want me to be, I will go where you want me to go.
I will offer my life to you, to give glory to your name, my King.
If your love guides me I will not fear,
For ever I will be as you want me to be.”
Amen!