Una giovinezza vissuta nel segno della fede e dell'amore
Sr. Laura Meozzi

Rome (Italy). In line with the Synod on: Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment (Cf. Working Document nos. 213-214), in the month of March, we share the sixth study on the journey of accompaniment in the youth of Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God.

A youth lived uner the sign of faith and love

Every life choice has a drama composed of environmental, personal, and relational factors. On the day of her First Profession, Sr. Laura Meozzi is rich with the experiences lived in three different environments: Tuscany (4 years), Rome (18 years), and Piedmont (3 years). She has met significant people in every place and has woven relationships with them that formed her, consolidating her choices, and making her strong, daring, and sincere.
Her personality matured thanks to the faith and the demanding education of her mother, to the graciousness of her brother, the deep affection of her sister, without excluding the love of her father, even if he was not yet entirely convinced of her happiness and caused her some years of suffering.

She became Sr. Laura thanks to the wise guidance of Fr. Federico Bedeschi, who from the confessional, guided her to follow the paths of God, lighting in her heart a great fire of love for Jesus. His accompaniment makes the young woman robust in faith, patience, obedience. The time of discernment is dense with prayer on both their parts, and blossoms into adhesion to the proposal to direct herself to the FMA Institute.

She is Sr. Laura thanks to the deep relationships with three exceptional women she met in Rome:

  • Maria Mazzoli, Roman by birth, three years younger than her, became the intimate friend of her childhood and her school companion. She introduced her into the Salesian world in Rome, makes her meet the FMA, discreetly accompanies her in the search for God’s will, and then shares almost her entire life with Laura.
  • Sr. Maria Casazza, young brilliant teacher in the Institute of the Dorotea Sisters during her studies at the school. This educator remained impressed on the memories of Laura and of Maria Mazzoli because of her love and her relational style.
  • Emma Tonini, a year older than her, an intelligent and enterprising woman who frequents the public libraries and succeeds to obtain a diploma and become a Fine Arts Professor, one day imitating the heroism of St. Stanislao Kostka, she leaves Rome and goes to Nizza Monferrato to become an FMA. She give wise advice to the Meozzi sisters and encourages them to follow Jesus as she had done.

She is Sr. Laura thanks to the accompaniment of the Formators at Nizza Monferrato:

    • Sr. Marina Coppa, assistant of the Postulants. “Typical figure of a good mother without weaknesses, strong without bitterness, finely penetrative soul, she was all for all. Hers was the method of the saints: goodness, serenity, firmness, but the basic teaching was charity”.
    • Sr. Ottavia Bussolino, Novice Formator, who was not well at the time. During the Spiritual Exercises of 1895, Sister Laura writes: “What I cannot obtain with word and action, I will obtain with the practice of self-denial, of humility, and, if possible, of the annihilation of myself. …”.

She is Sr. Laura above all thanks to Jesus whom she seeks in faith, loves ardently, and imitates by giving herself for the salvation of the world, unifying in herself the gifts received from Him in view of the mission. In fact, Laura Meozzi will leave for Poland in 1922, where she will begin the FMA educational works in that country, overcoming risks, dangers of every kind, but always remaining amother for the young people and for the orphan children, faithful to her mission notwithstanding the drama of the World War.

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