Title: Mother Writes
Sub Title: Letters of Mother Clelia Merloni
Author: Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Date of publication: 2019

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Dear young people,
This book was lovingly prepared with you in mind so that in the letters of Mother Clelia Merloni, Foundress of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, you can find both a guide and an inspiration for the different moments of your life. These letters have been grouped according to the following themes: “The Spiritual Life”, “Like You”, and “Searching for Holiness”. Alongside each letter are quotes by various authors that link Mother Clelia’s eloquent words to the reality of your life today.
The call to be better each every day leads us on the search for holiness because each and every person is personally touched by the gift of God to make progress along this path of love.
Starting from this conviction in her own life, Mother Clelia, by her example and her writings, confirmed that we take one step at a time on the path toward holiness. It is the journey of a lifetime and it must be constant. Mother Clelia was earnest about about providing children and young people with a wholesome formation and so she insisted on the practice of good example. She said, “Words encourage, but examples pull us along.”
With these letters from Mother Clelia, we want to offer you a path to follow, an example to imitate, words to listen to, and a friendly and motherly presence for you to feel. We are sure that, through her words, Mother Clelia will both accompany you and guide you along the right path.
Journey well along with Mother Clelia! Let us find in her teachings a light for our path!

Mother Miriam Cunha Sobrinha
Superior General

Title: Like a Grain of Wheat
Sub Title: Biography of Mother Clelia Merloni
Author: Nicola Gori
Publisher: ‎Effatà Editrice
Date of publication: 2017

 

“Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24).

 This was the life of Mother Clelia Merloni (1861-1930), Foundress of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: a Strong woman, who was brave, kind and compassionate towards anyone in need, including children, orphans, poor and abandoned women, the young, the elderly and families. She knew how to be creative in love, creating many opportunities and possibilities to help people in a concrete manner. She exercised extreme charity towards her daughters in religion, forgiving them and driving far from her mind, heart and lips, any thoughts or words of revenge or condemnation. The motto of the Institute, “The love of Christ impels us”, took form and visibility through her life, which she lived freely and generously, in detachment from herself.

Nicola Gori, the author of this book, using documentation from the “Positio”, described Mother Clelia’s life in these pages with clarity and competence. The title of the book succinctly sums up the life of a woman who offered herself entirely for the triumph of the Institute she had founded in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Despite the many persecutions and slanders of which she was victim, the figure of Mother Clelia has emerged

purified and sanctified, and marks our path as Apostles with evangelical light.

Her prayer of complete submission to the will of God and her suffering have made fertile the “rocky and thorny ground” of the Institute, transforming it into “fertile ground” to receive the “seed” which, in dying, gave new life to the Institute of the Apostles. Her limitless trust in the Heart of Jesus and in Divine Providence has resulted in the blossoming of the Institute in many parts of the world. The “grain of wheat” has produced and continues to bear much fruit through the presence of each Apostle who dedicates her life to Christ in prayer and in unselfish and free service to others, in the integral formation of the human person, in the recovery of the dignity lost by so many people who are victims of violence and slavery and in

untiring service to evangelization.

In the pages that follow, the reader will note that our Mother lived heroically and in the fullness of the eighth beatitude: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. REJOICE AND BE GLAD, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you” (Mt 5:11-12).

Mother Clelia was molded by suffering from the time of her childhood. Her life was marked by significant losses which fashioned her maternal heart. She suffered much slander and many misunderstandings within her Institute, and from priests and even bishops who did not know her. She knew, however, how to treat everyone with respect and dignity, even while knowing she was an innocent victim of substantial persecutions which tried both her faith and her health.

Mother Clelia said the following to one of her daughters: “From the moment that, under the Divine impulse of the Holy Spirit, I consecrated myself to His Divine heart, it is right that I should not yearn for any further glory than that of being humiliated, despised, slandered, forgotten by everyone, not consoled by anyone … and that I hold in faith that Divine Providence wisely orders everything for the benefit of my soul as well as for the good of the Institute itself. No, my daughter, let us not accuse creatures for what God does through them. They are none other than instruments in God’s hands” (Large Manuscript, vol. 1).

Mother Clelia offered everything to the Heart of Jesus and she accepted everything as permitted by God so that the Institute could strengthen and expand. Her life was a continual

offering for the greater glory of the Heart of Jesus and for the salvation of humanity wounded by sin and in need of mercy. She was certain that none of her tears, nor those of her daughters,

would be wasted because the Sacred Heart would reward each sacrifice and suffering. In heaven, we will have clarity of that which reason today is unable to understand. As Mother

Clelia said, “Oh! One day, in God’s tribunal, the mysteries which human reason attempts to interpret as best it can, will be explained quite differently” (Large Manuscript vol. II).

 

Mother Miriam Cunha Sobrinha

Superior General

Title: Unwavering Love
Sub Title: Mother Clelia Merloni
Author: Domenico Agasso jr
Publisher: ‎Effatà Editrice
Date of publication: 2018

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Unwavering Love: the title of this book reveals a great woman’s tenacious love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Congrega-tion for which she gave her life. She was a woman who did not measure the generosity of her complete self-offering for a noble cause, as she herself wrote in her diary: “we offer everything to Him to find everything in Him.” To live one’s life for a noble ideal is the most beautiful adventure of love that a human being can experience on this earth.
Mother Clelia left us an attractive example of this adventure. Indeed, by looking at the example of her life, many other young women had the courage to become Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, abandoning all human plans, all affection, all material goods and all opportunities for an autonomous life, in order to become a gift to God for the good of others and, in the footsteps of Mother Clelia, to sow love on the streets of the world like the first Apostles had done in following Jesus!
It is beautiful to feel called and involved in this plan of love that God had dreamed for Clelia and to help other young people to know, love, follow and serve the Lord as Clelia did. Jesus asks Clelia to be an Apostle of his Heart, as he did with the Apostles, his closest friends. He asked her to share his public life; to spend her life on the streets of today “from Galilee to Jerusalem.”
Jesus did not spare her the Road to Calvary, but he made her able to walk it with patience and with a generous heart, transforming it into a via amoris (a way of love).
Only those with a free heart and an immeasurable trust in Providence are capable of completely abandoning their own personal plans in order to welcome God’s plan for their lives. Throughout her life, Clelia tried to identify herself in everything with the Master Teacher and to mold herself to his sacred will, without keeping even the smallest part for herself. She was a giant in her faith and in her trusting surrender!
When she was young, Clelia did not behave like the rich young man in the Gospel who did not have the courage to sell everything he owned, to give it to the poor and to follow Jesus. The only daughter of Gioacchino Merloni, a rich businessman in Sanremo, she had been brought up as a princess under the care of her father who wanted to prepare her for a brilliant future. He wanted her to have a refined, intellectual education, to study French and English, to have special lessons in piano and embroidery in gold. She had beautiful clothes, she traveled, and young men courted her. Yet, she considered all these things to be a waste, when compared to her love for Christ. She gave everything up to follow her heavenly Spouse who was calling her to a divine ideal: to love Jesus with all her heart, all her soul, and her entire being, without exception. Her only desire was to follow Jesus closely, like the first Apostles John, Peter, James, Andrew…!!
She advised her spiritual daughters: “Let us learn to be Apos-tles not just in name, but according to the spirit of the Apos-tles… By wearing the habit of the Apostles, you assume its obli-gations and you must therefore have a love without reserve for Jesus. And you, oh daughters, know that love consists in sacrifice and in virtue. Be generous and the Sacred Heart will reward you for your suffering, in ways beyond your imagination. Always act with integrity, under the gaze of God, forgetting yourself, in order to help those who suffer. Be patient with those who distress you, and bear in silence all the suffering that you may feel in your heart, your spirit and your body” (Large Manuscript 1, p. 120 and Large Manuscript II, pp. 159-160).
The main desire of Mother Clelia was to “zealously work for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, spreading this devotion and trying to make reparation for the insults that he receives from sinners, especially members of the Freemason sects and from Apostate priests” (Large Manuscript 1). She offered herself as a “victim on the altar” for the conversion of her father and sinners.
In the Manuscript Rules, under the heading “Directory”, she wrote the following: “The Apostle Sisters will offer to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus all the works of charity which they will carry out in obedience.” She then listed the works, high-lighting the mission with migrants, especially Italian migrants, who went abroad seeking a new life and who needed material and spiritual assistance. She also made room in the mission for migrants of other nationalities.
In Castelnuovo Fogliani, at the request of the Bishop of Piacenza, Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, Mother Clelia revised the Manuscript Rules in order to receive Diocesan approval of the Institute. She also modified the title to “Apostle Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Scalabrini himself approved the Constitutions. Both events occurred on June 10, 1900.
Mother Clelia was an emancipated woman for her times. She was forward-thinking, always looking towards the future. She lived her life between the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s, in a male-dominated society in which women were underestimated. Yet, through her concrete actions, she tried to make people see that women had a dignity that needed to be reclaimed, and thus, she spurred the Sisters to be well trained, so that they could educate women who would be free, autonomous and capable of creating good families and finding meaningful employment in society. She paid special attention to poor and ignorant women who had no intellectual training because she knew that they were seen as being the most fragile and vulner-able members of society, and thus were exploited for it.
The first works that she began manifested this concern. From the very beginning of her Apostolate, she welcomed not only orphan girls, poor girls in need of formation, and sick and marginalized elderly women, but also “derelict” girls that she found on the street who needed special care to begin a new life. Among the witness statements in the Positio, there is one by Sister Eletta Celi, in which she recalls a young prostitute that Clelia had welcomed. She found a job for her and taught her Christian doctrine, helping her to recover the dignity she had lost as a result of her extreme poverty and the lack of a decent job with which to support herself.
Mother Clelia’s heart was always attentive to the weakest, the poorest and the neediest. She embraced the corporal and spiri-tual works of mercy as a mission, and without considering their social condition, she looked at each person with a tender glance of love, helping them with their human, material, intellectual and spiritual needs.
She was a refined teacher and she dedicated herself person-ally to the formation of the Sisters and the young women by teaching music, piano, embroidery and Christian doctrine. She saw education as a work of charity and she taught the Sisters to treat everyone with kindness and firmness, in order to form strong, and at the same time, tender personalities.
The author of this book, Domenico Agasso, has captured well Mother’s personal life and has developed it with great knowledge. I thank him for this good work which will help us to know, in greater depth, the varied colors and sizes of the tiles that make up the “mosaic” of the life of this strong, willful and steadfast woman, Clelia Merloni. With all her strength, this courageous Foundress carried out this mission of love which the Lord slowly revealed to her through the events of her human and spiritual life in the silent daily moments of her existence.

 

Mother Miriam Cunha Sobrinha
Superior General

Title: Diary of Mother Clelia Merloni
Sub Title: A Woman of Forgiveness
Author: Clelia Merloni e Nicola Gori
Publisher: ‎Effatà Editrice
Date of publication: 2018

 

I would like to introduce the Diary with Mother Clelia’s own words. They describe her daily offering and reveal the desire of her heart as a consecrated woman, spouse, and mother.

I, Sr. Clelia Merloni, promise Our Lord Jesus Christ to offer myself every morning in union with His Holy Wounds, to the Divine Father for the salvation of the entire world, and for the good and for the expansion of my Congregation. I will adore Him in the hearts of all those who receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist. I will thank Him for deigning to enter into so many hearts that are so ill-prepared to receive Him

Throughout the entire Diary we can perceive her concern for the salvation of sinners and for the good of the Institute she founded. She offered the Lord every kind of suffering and pain – physical, moral, and spiritual – for the intentions she carried in her heart.

As Nicola Gori wrote, the life of Mother Clelia was very troubled, a constant human and spiritual struggle to overcome the deep feelings which would have dragged her along those paths that are most comfortable for human nature. She never gave in, however, and she courageously chose to follow the narrow way, “armed” by prayer and “clad” in humility. The strength of this woman is truly admirable!

To conquer oneself is the rule of the saints! This is the path that God has also marked out for me, the narrow way, love of humiliation and crosses, a spirit of generosity, sacrifice, death to all that is not God and that doesn’t lead my soul directly to Him.

With limitless courage she chose to follow Christ, walking the way of humility, aware that by selecting this way she was choosing humiliations, annihilation, persecution, and all types of misunderstandings. She knew that this path was trod by the Son of Man long before her, when He found no suitable place to be born in Bethlehem and so He was placed in a manger; when He was exiled to Egypt to flee from the persecutions of King Herod; when He was misunderstood by the Scribes and Pharisees; when He was betrayed and sold by a friend and crucified solely because He loved us until the end.

Love summons love and Clelia chose the same road for herself. She wanted with all the generosity of her soul to walk in the footprints of the Lord.

You, O Jesus, walk before me; don’t ever let me refuse to walk in the footprints that You, O Jesus, have left for me.

She understood that humility is like a garment that the soul must wear to please Jesus and overcome the temptations and seductions of the Evil One. She wanted to present herself to her Spouse in a beautiful, resplendent and spotless dress, and washed in the “blood of the Lamb” which removes the soil of sin and of all human presumption. She endeavored to attain this goal her entire life, fighting against the invisible enemy with all her being.

Clelia had a strong personality; she was strong-willed, tenacious and firm, but at the same time affectionate, tender, docile, and capable of committing her entire being to a great cause, even at the cost of great sacrifice. Opposing tendencies were perfectly integrated in her. She knew the limits of her nature but did not fear to climb the highest peaks to find the Beloved of her life. She knew that she was never alone, that He journeyed with her, and that it was He who prepared her knapsack for the journey and the dowry for their “wedding”:

Jesus wants me to wear a new dress, which His love has prepared for me. He will prepare my dowry, I only have to accept it from His most holy Hands. When He wants to come and stay with my poor soul, it will have to be dressed in that humility which God wants of me. This is the meaning of how I am to dress: Everything in me has to be motivated by the spirit of humility.

In her “knapsack” for the trip, she knew she had to bring the “equipment” she needed to travel the road of asceticism, which would prepare her to encounter the Spouse she longed for: faith, prayer, the Eucharist, the rosary, self-denial, total surrender to Providence and to the will of God.

Today I had the inspiration to keep my eyes fixed on God, because the more closely a soul is called to follow Him, that much more it must mortify itself. Perfect self-emptying is the most necessary requirement in offering oneself to God. You leave behind and never take back something that you strip away; you must give up bad habits, just as you give up worn out clothing and never use it again.

Mother Clelia was aware that handing over her life for the conversion and salvation of sinners would cost her dearly. She would have to fight against the “visible and invisible forces” she names in her Diary. She also knew that, besides having to contend with her own human nature, she would have to face combat with the enemy of Christ’s Cross, who does not want souls to be saved.

Let the winds of temptation rage, let all my visible and invisible enemies emerge, but I will never again fear anything, clinging closely to You on the Cross.

Mother Clelia sensed the persecution of the devil, who wanted to prevent her from putting on the dress of humility that would prepare her for the encounter with her Spouse.

She maintained great love for the Cross of Christ and expressed her great desire to become one with Him on the Cross. She used nuptial language with the Crucified: “stretching herself on the Cross with Him.” She wanted to be united with the Lord in His greatest suffering, not leaving Him alone hanging between heaven and earth. She wanted to share in His destiny and drink with Him from the same bitter chalice of contradictions and total abandonment by the persons most dear to her.

She often used soliloquy in her meditation, advising herself as if she were speaking to another person, perhaps as a means of hearing herself speak of what she has lived in profound solitude. She dialogued with Jesus in prayer and always maintained deep union with Him, even in moments of desert-like aridity. If her heart and senses were unable to feel the presence of the Lord, her mind enlightened by faith told her that He was always present. How many times she had to sacrifice her own human reasoning to leave room for faith.

The editor, Nicola Gori, defined her as a “woman of forgiveness”. I believe that this definition encompasses the life style of a woman who, as “disciple and Apostle” learned at the “school” of the Heart of Christ, the only true Teacher, to forgive always.

Jesus whispers to my soul that works are the language of the heart; that from the fruits and not from the leaves do you know the goodness of a plant. He not only wants me to forgive from the heart all the wrongs received from my offenders, but to seek to do them as much good as possible, to be sure to pray much for them, to compassionate with them and to excuse them, desiring that they too take part in His heavenly glory.

Mother Clelia wanted to go to Jesus in complete freedom. At nearly the end of her Diary she wrote about holy indifference, a concept used in Ignatian spirituality:

At the cost of any sacrifice whatever, I want to reach holy indifference. I want to belong to God without restriction or division. The Providence of God demands this indifference of me. Since God is infinite wisdom and knowledge He knows the means that will lead me with total certitude to the attainment of my final goal. Holy indifference will free me from all agitation, anxiety and worry, which arise from my excessive attachment to created things. It will banish from my heart all the passions with which it always struggles. It is this holy indifference which will calm to my soul; it will be like a foretaste of happiness for me.

Mother Clelia preceded St. Faustina Kowalska (1905-1937) in reflecting on mercy:

For as much as the soul is filled with misery, it should never have fear of God, since He is always ready to be merciful to her, and the greatest pleasure that Jesus can derive is that of being able to lead to His Eternal Father the greatest possible number of sinners. Reformed sinners are the glory and jewels of Jesus.

I thank the author, Nicola Gori, for his very beautiful spiritual interpretation of the Diary of our Blessed Mother Clelia Merloni. She was truly “tried by fire” in accord with evangelical logic. Her life witnesses that it is the Lord who will have the last word when we place our trust in Him!

 

Mother Miriam Cunha Sobrinha

Superior General