- Sr. Angela Cassulo was among the first group of FMA sisters sent as missionaries to South America in 1877. She spent her life serving in the kitchens of the missionary houses in Patagonia and Viedma, facing hardship and sacrifice with generosity, humility, and joy. - She embodied living the will of God above all else. Though she had not originally planned to be a missionary, she made herself available when needed. She remained serene and faithful until her death at the mission in Viedma in 1917. - Sr. Cassulo's example of finding God in simplicity and ordinary life through her service in the kitchen calls FMA sisters today to value all expressions of their mission equally and

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Rome, 14 June 2017.
Dearest Sisters,
It is always a great joy to come to you each month during
this special celebration of the 140th
anniversary of the first
Missionary Expedition.
I imagine that each of you is joyfully preparing to undertake new apostolic horizons, entering into
the ship of our GREAT MISSIONARY EXPEDITION. As we have already said many times, we
are all involved in this meaningful event. I would say metaphorically that no one can permit herself
to look at the boat from a distance as it leaves and remain as before. From when the ship Savoie left,
the FMA Institute has assumed radically and forever her missionary physiognomy. This is very
beautiful and makes of the FMA an outgoing missionary, wherever she is, with heart and mind open
to the horizons of the world.
It is in this sense that we ask ourselves: what moves within me when I hear the Missionary
Expedition spoken about? What do I feel in my heart when I think about the life of the first six
FMA missionaries ad gentes? How wide does my gaze broaden when I look at the world, at reality
with the missionary gaze of Mother Mazzarello and of Don Bosco? What changes in me?
In the month of March, we dedicated the message of the 14th
to two missionaries of the first hour:
Sr. Teresa Gedda and Sr. Angela Cassulo. In the remembrance of the centenary of their death
(1917-2017), we wanted to offer you a rapid mention of each of them. However, it is our desire to
take up once again the story of their life so that they may be better known and so that they may help
us to be faithful to our consecration.
Today, we will pause on the life of Sr. Angela Cassulo. According to her biographical profile,
published in a small but precious booklet (Biographical Accounts of the FMA who died in the 1917-
1918 Biennial, Turin, 1959), Sr. Angela entered at Mornese in the third year of the Institute’s life.
She made her first profession on August 28, 1875, in the hands of Don Bosco, during the same
celebration in which Mother Mazzarello made her perpetual profession. For her whole life, the
kitchen was her altar and the place of her growth in holiness: at Mornese, at Borgo S. Martino,
then in various houses in America. She had never thought to make the missionary request, but
when the opportunity arose, she made herself available… ‘in case she could be useful for
something!’ Once she departed, she never returned to her country.
It is important to be aware that it is not what we do that makes us more or less good, more or less
holy, but how we do it, the spirit moves us from within and makes us missionaries of joy and of
hope, even in a kitchen, as Sr. Cassulo did and lived.
Together with Sr. Angela Vallese and another two FMA, Sr. Angela Cassulo entered Patagonia at
the beginning of 1880. Carmen de Patagonia and Viedma were her mission lands until the end.
There she spent her life in the kitchen, facing with generosity and humility fatigue, suffering,
physical pain, and, in addition to the lack of means, the heavy farming and the various works the
missionaries had to attend to in order to have what was necessary for the hospital of Viedma. Sr.
Angela was all goodness for the sisters and the people of the place. Nothing for herself! She was

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capable of measureless sacrifices and had a very concrete wisdom. She said that the Holy Spirit
was her spiritual Director”.
In her whole life, she only sought the will of God, and this is her special trait. In the face of the
gravest difficulties, she only and always repeated her habitual: “All as God desires!” In regard to
the life of Jesus, she was especially attracted to His infancy and His painful passion. Having aged
precociously due to fatigue and strain, she remained youthful, keeping her candid simplicity and her
feverous spirit. During the four long and painful months of her illness that brought her to the end,
she knew how to remain serene, tranquil, happy, and humorous. She would often repeat: “The best
thing is to do the divine will well and be tranquil in the hands of God!”
On March 28, 1917, after receiving Communion, she serenely closed her eyes. The Salesian
Provincial, Fr. Luigi Pedemonte, breaking the silence in that moment of tracing the last sign of
blessing, exclaimed: “An angel has now left the earth: Angel in name and in fact!”.
Dearest Sisters, on this June 14, I invite you to keep present two prayer intentions. The first is for
all the sisters and people we know who are named Angela. For them we ask the gift of the Holy
Spirit so that they may be in their daily life “angels in name, angels in fact!”.
Then, I invite you to write and leave on the altar for the whole day, the names of all the sisters
you know who have or still carry out the work of cooking. There are many sisters in the history
of the Institute who have spent and still spend their life for the young in humility and in the silence
of a kitchen. There are many sisters who have given and still give more flavor to the life of others,
in spite of their hiddenness, sacrifices, fatigues…in a kitchen! There are many sisters who live their
service-mission always in the kitchen, and have made their own the words of Jesus: “So that all may
have life and have it abundantly!”. It is beautiful to recognize the work of the cooks because they
give us life and they keep us alive! Even the Mission Sector wants to say a special thank you to
these our sisters and it will do it with prayer for each of them.
Sisters, I thank you for the communion of your prayer and as we prepare our hearts with enthusiasm
and generosity for our GREAT MISSIONARY EXPEDITION.
I leave for your reflection and sharing in community, the beautiful testimony from St. Francis
Xavier Province - ABB, where Sr. Angela Cassulo lived the greater part of her life in a meaningful
missionary ad gentes commitment.
With the affection of a sister, a big embrace.
Councilor for the Missions
alaide@cgfma.org
Sr. Angela Cassulo belongs to the group of pioneers that the newly born FMA Institute sent to this land
of South America on November 14, 1877.
She lived the original experience of Mornese and at this charismatic font of the origins, she drank
together with Mother Mazzarello and the first sisters, the Love of Jesus and of the Kingdom of God that
made them leave the small town of Mornese, cross an immense ocean, and arrive at the dreamed of
land: America: Villa Colon, and in 1880, Carmen de Patagonia, center of the mission among the

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indigenes of Patagonia, Argentina, and later, Viedma in the River Negro. Nothing stopped them. They
were truly ‘heroic times’ of the Salesian mission in the arid and uninhabited Patagonia. She leaves
everything: family, nation, language, customs. Open to the missionary projects of Don Bosco, she defies
unpopularity, dangers, and risks of every kind. Her life tells us that like the first apostles and disciples,
how much God realized through her.
The various letters of Mother Mazzarello mention Sr. Angela with maternal affection, with the affection
with which Main knew how to reach the heart of her daughters, knowing them one by one (Letters 6, 7,
22, 25, 27, 33, 37, 47, 55). When Mother Mazzarello addresses Sr. Angela, she does it with the style of
Jesus. Mother uses those signs and gestures that allude to her daily life, inviting her to find Jesus in the
contemplation of the simple and familiar life of the missionary community: “Sr. Angela Cassulo, are
you still the cook? Since you are always close to the fire you must be on fire with the love of God by
now, right?” (L 22,11).
The heritage that Sr. Angela leaves us is the simplicity of life of the little ones of the Gospel, who in the
simplicity and ordinariness of life, meet the opportunity to discover the presence of God in the present
history, and this makes them able to live the contemplation of daily life.
Often involuntarily in the history of our Provinces, this charismatic heritage has become suffocated and
distorted. Perhaps, we have exalted those sisters who have had the possibility of studying and preparing
themselves to the detriment of those who have given their whole life in a simple kitchen, in the
dispensary, laundry, reception desk…Without wanting to, we have made a hierarchy of expressions for
that one mission, exalting intellectual gifts to the detriment of manual ones; we have valued more those
dedicated to scholastic work rather than those dedicated to free time and to works of the periphery.
Today Sr. Angela reminds us of the essentials of Salesian consecrated life centered on the love of Jesus
and His Kingdom, without measuring the sacrifices and the selfless giving because we are consecrated
in order to give Him everything…even our life if necessary!
Today, Sr. Angela wishes to re-awaken us to the attraction of religious life that God has aroused in our
heart so that our life may be full, abundant, worthy, and happy. She calls to us with her passionate life,
close to the people, to the poorest, that embraces all in the poor, with the style of Jesus who chose them
because they have a privileged place in the heart of God.
Today, Sr. Angela invites us to leave our comfort and prestigious zones, our securities, so that the most
needy and abandoned youth challenges us to change our plans and our itineraries…contact with the
poorest youth moves us, strikes us. Our Salesian consecration without mysticism and far from the
poorest youth, transforms us into a religious life of the ‘parlor’.
Today, Sr. Angela still shows us the journey of Salesian holiness that arrived in these lands of
Patagonia, where fruits of youth sanctity grew: Laura Vicuña e Zeffirino Namuncurá, children of the
original cultures of America who knew how to value the witness of their educators and the proposals of
the Gospel, giving their life for Jesus and for their people.
May the life of Sr. Angela Cassulo move us and contagion us and lead us to follow her footprints of
holiness, recreating her evangelical courage and her missionary audacity.
M. L. R. fma
Bahía Blanca