{"id":143161,"date":"2025-09-24T16:22:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cgfmanet.org\/infosphere\/la-reliquia-di-suor-maria-troncatti-in-casa-generalizia\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T09:58:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T07:58:54","slug":"the-relic-of-sister-maria-troncatti-in-the-general-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cgfmanet.org\/en\/ifma-en\/the-relic-of-sister-maria-troncatti-in-the-general-house\/","title":{"rendered":"The Relic of Sister Maria Troncatti in the General House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rome (Italy).<\/strong> On 24 September 2025,\u00a0 Mary Help of Christians Community<\/em> of the General House, together with the Superior General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, and the Councilors present, experienced the monthly anniversary of Mary Help of Christians in a very special way with the\u00a0 Eucharistic Celebration presided over by the Postulator for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family, Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni, and concelebrated by Fr. Gabriel de Jes\u00fas Cruz Trejo, his collaborator who, in view of the now imminent Canonization (19 October 2025), brought the reliquary with a precious relic of Sister Maria Troncatti.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The General Secretary, Sister Maria Luisa Nicastro, introduced the moment as follows, \u201cIn welcoming the relic of Sister Maria Troncatti, we recognize and praise the action of Grace which made her an extension of the merciful love of Christ. He still today makes Himself present to heal, console, and send. In communion with the institute, to the intercession of Sister Maria Troncatti, soon a Saint, we entrust peace, to those who suffer in body and spirit, the holiness of each of us and of the Institute.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The relic is a phalanx of the hand of Sister Mary<\/strong>. In the homily, taking up the Word of God of the day, Fr. Pierluigi shared the symbolic value of the hands of this great missionary.<\/p>\n

Like the priest Ezra, \u201cSister Maria also lived her life holding out her hands towards the Lord, with supplications and abandonment and extending them towards others as a sign of help, consolation, and healing\u201d. And like the disciples of the Gospel, \u201cSister Maria was also a missionary of the Gospel. She proclaimed the Kingdom of God; she healed the sick. She went from village to village; she performed healings in\u00a0 soul and body. It is very important that we learn to read the lives of the Saints, and our daily lives, always in the light of the Word of God, because the Gospel must become flesh.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Fr. Pierluigi then reread some passages from Sister Maria Troncatti’s life looking at her hands which welcomed, helped, cared for, blessed. \u201cHands that care for and heal,\u201d<\/strong> as in the first meeting with the Shuar, when she is asked to extract a bullet from the body of the chief’s daughter. Initially, she places a hand on her forehead which is burning with fever. Then, invoking Mary Help of Christians, she manages to heal her. \u201cAs if pushed by an unknown hand, the bullet leaps out and falls to the ground.\u201d Fr. Pierluigi comments, \u201cThese hands will have to remove many bullets, not physical ones, but those bullets that express violence, revenge, hatred; she is a woman of reconciliation. Her hands are reconciled hands and therefore become an instrument of reconciliation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

They are \u201cpraying hands\u201d<\/strong> because throughout her life, \u201cshe always accompanies her strong and decisive action with prayer, and the holy rosary always flows in these hands… they are hands that intercede; they are hands that entrust themselves to Mary Help of Christians. Her \u2018botiqu\u00edn\u2019 thus becomes a clinic for souls. It is not enough just to take care of bodies; one must touch and achieve the total healing of the person.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

They are also \u201cmiraculous hands\u201d.<\/strong> The Postulator observes that this aspect also emerges from the photographs of the \u2018by now\u2019 Saint, where she holds her hands on the heads of the sick. And recounting the episode of a man burned by fire, who comes out completely healthy, without any marks or scars on his skin, he concludes, \u201cGod healed him through the miraculous hands and daily prayers and the maternal heart of Sister Maria.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Sister Maria herself, whose hands will have to put out the fire of hatred and revenge<\/strong>, is in turn the protagonist of such an episode when as a child, during the summer at Col d’Aprica, she is burned by the flame of a small fire lit with the other shepherd children, from which a man passing by on the mule track providentially saves her. The risk for her is that she will no longer be able to use her hands. \u201cAfter a few hours, however, her hands and arms become healthy and beautiful again, without any trace of burns, while the scars on the legs will remain for life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Celebrant comments, \u201cI would say that this will become a little sign of her entire life, because she will have to put out many fires: of hatred, of violence, of revenge… This woman, through her hands, becomes a woman of peace, a woman of reconciliation. <\/strong>The intercession we must ask for is that it may also extinguish some ‘little fire’ in us, that she may help us to become women of peace and reconciliation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And finally, they are \u201chands that are abandoned in God\u201d.<\/strong> \u201cThe photo that represents her with her hands crossed under the crucifix is very beautiful, indicating a whole life handed over in the purest Salesian charism: union with God in the liturgy of life, in apostolic industriousness.\u201d<\/em> Fr. Pierluigi recalls Sister Maria’s ability to console her Sisters in the dramatic time of tension that is created in Suc\u00faa. \u201cLittle daughters, do not fear and do not be afraid about everything that has happened; let us abandon ourselves in the hands of God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is holiness <\/em><\/strong>\u2013 adds the Postulator \u2013 passing from our hands to total delivery into the hands of God.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“The words of farewell to the sisters – \u2018Confide in the Virgin Help of Christians, and you will see that this anguish will not last long; very soon tranquility and calm will come! I assure you!\u2019 – may help us to value the presence of the relic in this light: a woman who with her hands was hardworking, prayerful, totally given to God and others,”<\/strong> <\/em>he concluded. (complete text<\/a><\/strong><\/span>)<\/p>\n

The previous evening, in the Goodnight to the Community of the Generalate, Mother Chiara<\/strong> had announced the arrival of the relic, underlining the importance of the moment as one of the stages towards the date of Canonization. After Saint Mary Domenica Mazzarello, Sister Maria Troncatti is the first FMA who will be canonized.\u00a0 Mother wanted to underline her ability, as a missionary and nurse, to heal the spirit through the healing of the body; \u201ca kind of very concrete evangelization.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The relic will remain in the Generalate until the Eucharist on the morning of October 2 for the veneration of the FMA and all those who wish.<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n