Easter: May 7th
Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter
Other Commemorations: St. Rosa Venerini, Virgin (RM)
MASS READINGS
May 07, 2025 (Readings on USCCB website)
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COLLECT PRAYER
Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter: Be present to your family, O Lord, we pray, and graciously ensure those you have endowed with the grace of faith an eternal share in the Resurrection of your Only Begotten Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
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Today the Roman Martyrology commemorates the feast of recently-canonized Italian educator Saint Rosa Venerini (1656-1728), who founded Catholic schools for girls and young women during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. St. Rosa (also known as St. Rose) was declared a saint in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, who spoke in his canonization homily of her courageous work for “the spiritual elevation and authentic emancipation of the young women of her time.”
Meditation for Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter
"A little while"
1. "Yet a little while," for you are only pilgrims and strangers on earth. The liturgy wishes to center our attention and our efforts on what is right and enduring, and on those things in which we can find true peace. That alone has permanent value.
2. "Yet a little while". Everything that exists on earth is temporal and passing. Our goods, our pleasures and our joys, our health, beauty, strength, youth, wealth, honors, friendships, even our suffering and misfortune, are of short duration and soon pass away. Man's life on earth is like a gust of wind, and his "days (are] measureable" (Ps. 88:6). "All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it" (Isa. 40:6 f.). Every creature on earth bears this stamp on its forehead, "yet a little while." Why do we cling to the things of this earth? Why do we rely on them so persistently? What peace can we find in them? We are pilgrims on the earth for "a little while." He who can grasp this truth understands life. He who heeds this warning of our Lord, need fear no evil, for he can weather every storm. He is a pilgrim and a stranger, and is left undisturbed by the uneasy ebb and flow of life. We are "deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastised and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing and possessing all things" (II Cor. 6:8-10).
Only one thing is permanent, our faith and our hope. "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you". The true Christian, the Christian who has risen with Christ, lives by faith and in the hope of those things that are to come. "I believe in life everlasting."
"But our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby also He is able to subdue all things unto Himself" (Phil. 3:20 f.). Our Lord is already preparing Himself for His ascension into heaven. "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you; because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you also may be. And whither I go you know, and the way you know.... I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:1 ff.). "Heaven and earth shall pass, but My words shall not pass" (Matt. 24:35). "The word of our Lord endureth forever" (Isa. 40:8).
3. Our souls must meditate on our heavenly home that they may become strong. Only when buoyed up by such thoughts will they maintain the proper attitude and become strong enough to overcome the world, to despise worldly things, and remain true to their ideals. By virtue of this strength, Christians live for the future. They long for martyrdom, and with St. Paul they desire "to be dissolved and to be with Christ" (Phil. 1:29). They rejoice at the privilege of being allowed to suffer for their faith. "If you be reproached for the name of Christ, you shall be blessed; for that which is of the honor, glory, and power of God, and that which is of His Spirit, resteth on you (I Pet. 4:14).
"But the things that were gain to me, the same I have counted loss for Christ. Furthermore, I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but as dung that I may gain Christ. . . . That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death. If by any means I may attain to the resurrection which is from the dead....Forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth myself to those things that are before, I press towards the mark to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:7 ff.).
—Benedict Baur, OSB, The Light of the World, Vol. 2
St. Rosa Venerini
Rosa Venerini was born in Viterbo, on February 9, 1656. Her father, Goffredo, originally from Castelleone di Suasa (Ancona), after having completed his doctorate in medicine at Rome, moved to Viterbo where he practiced the medical profession brilliantly in the Grand Hospital. From his marriage to Marzia Zampichetti, of an ancient family of Viterbo, four children were born: Domenico, Maria Maddalena, Rosa and Orazio.
Rosa was naturally gifted with intelligence and an uncommon human sensibility. The education that she received in her family allowed her to develop her many talents of mind and heart, forming her in steadfast Christian principles. According to her first biographer, Father Girolamo Andreucci, S.I., she made a vow to consecrate her life to God at the age of seven. During the early years of her youth, she lived through a conflict between the attractions of the world and the promise made to God. Rosa overcame this crisis with trusting prayer and mortification.
At age twenty, Rosa raised questions about her own future. The women of her time could choose only two orientations for their live: marriage or the cloister. Rosa esteemed both, but she felt called to realize another project for the good of the Church and the society of her time. Urged on by prophetic interior occurrences, she committed much time in suffering and searching before reaching a resolution that was completely innovative.
In the autumn of 1676, on the advice of her father, Rosa entered the Dominican Monastery of St. Catherine, with the prospect of fulfilling her vow. With her Aunt Anna Cecilia beside her, she learned to listen to God in silence and in meditation. She remained in the monastery for only a few months because the sudden death of her father forced her to return to her suffering mother.
In the years immediately following, Rosa had to bear the burden of serious events for her family: her brother Domenico died at only twenty-seven years of age; a few months later her mother died, unable to bear the sorrow.
In the meantime, Maria Maddalena married. There remained at home only Orazio and Rosa, by now twenty-four years old. Challenged by the desire to do something great for God, in May of 1684, the Saint began to gather the girls and women of the area in her own home to recite the rosary. The way in which the girls and women prayed, and above all, their conversation before and after the prayer, opened the mind and heart of Rosa to a sad reality: the woman of the common people was a slave of cultural, moral and spiritual poverty. She then understood that the Lord was calling her to a higher mission which she gradually identified in the urgent need to dedicate herself to the instruction and Christian formation of young women, not with sporadic encounters, but with a school understood in the real and true sense of the word.
On August 30, 1685, with the approval of the Bishop of Viterbo, Cardinal Urbano Sacchetti and the collaboration of two friends, Gerolama Coluzzelli and Porzia Bacci, Rosa left her father's home to begin her first school, according to an innovative plan that had matured in prayer and her search for the will of God. The first objective of the Foundress was to give the girls of the common people a complete Christian formation and prepare them for life in society. Without great pretense, Rosa opened the first "Public School for Girls in Italy". The origins were humble but the significance was prophetic: the human promotion and spiritual uplifting of woman was a reality that did not take long to receive the recognition of the religious and civil authorities.
Expansion of the Work
The initial stages were not easy. The three Maestre (teachers) had to face the resistance of clergy who considered the teaching of the catechism as their private office. But the harshest suspicion came from conformists who were scandalized by the boldness of this woman of the upper middle class of Viterbo who had taken to heart the education of ignorant girls. Rosa faced everything for the love of God and with her characteristic strength, continuing on the path that she had undertaken, by now sure that she was truly following the plan of God. The fruits proved her to be right. The same pastors recognized the moral improvement that the work of education generated among the girls and mothers.
The validity of this initiative was acknowledged and its fame went beyond the confines of the Diocese. Cardinal Mark Antonio Barbarigo, Bishop of Montefiascone, understood the genius of the Viterbo project and he called the Saint to his diocese. The Foundress, always ready to sacrifice herself for the glory of God, responded to the invitation. From 1692 to 1694, she opened ten schools in Montefiascone and the villages surrounding Lake Bolsena. The cardinal provided the material means and Rosa made the families aware, trained the teachers, and organized the schools. When she had to return to Viterbo to attend to the strengthening of her first school, Rosa entrusted the schools and the teachers to the direction of a young woman, St. Lucia Filippini, in whom she has seen particular gifts of mind, heart and spirit.
After the openings in Viterbo and Montefiascone, other schools were started in Lazio. Rosa reached Rome in 1706, but the first experience in Rome was a real failure which marked her deeply and caused her to wait six long years before regaining the trust of the authorities. On December 8, 1713, with the help of Abate Degli Atti, a great friend of the Venerini family, Rosa was able to open one of her schools in the center of Rome at the foot of the Campidoglio.
On October 24, 1716, they received a visit from Pope Clement XI, accompanied by eight Cardinals, who wanted to attend the lessons. Amazed and pleased, at the end of the morning he addressed these words to the Foundress: "Signora Rosa, you are doing that which we cannot do. We thank you very much because with these schools you will sanctify Rome."
From that moment on, Governors and Cardinals asked for schools for their areas. The duties of the Foundress became intense, consisting of travels and hard work interwoven with joys and sacrifices for the formation of new communities. Wherever a new school sprang up, in a short time a moral improvement could be noted in the youth.
Rosa Venerini died a saintly death in the community of St. Mark's in Rome on the evening of May 7, 1728. She had opened more than forty schools. Her remains were entombed in the nearby Church of the Gesù, so loved by her. In 1952, on the occasion of her Beatification, they were transferred to the chapel of the Generalate in Rome. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 15, 2006 at Rome.
Her Spirituality
During her entire life, Rosa moved in the ocean of the Will of God. She said, "I feel so nailed to the Will of God that nothing else matters, neither death nor life. I want what He wants; I want to serve Him as much as pleases Him and no more."
After her first contacts with the Dominican Fathers at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Oak Tree, near Viterbo, she definitely followed the austere and balanced spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola under the direction of the Jesuits, especially Father Ignatius Martinelli.
The crises of adolescence, the perplexity of youth, the search for a new way, the institution of the schools and the communities, the rapport with the Church and the world-all were oriented to the Divine Will.
Prayer was the breath of her day. Rosa did not impose on herself or her Daughters long vocal prayers, but recommended that the life of the Maestre, in the practice of the precious education ministry, be a continuous speaking with God, of God and for God.
Intimate communion with the Lord was nourished by mental prayer, which the Saint considered "essential nourishment of the soul". In meditation, Rosa listened to the Teacher who taught along the roads of Palestine and in a particular way from the height of the Cross. With her gaze upon the crucifix, Rosa always felt more strongly her passion for the salvation of souls. For this reason, she celebrated and lived daily the Eucharist in a mystical way. In her imagination, the Saint saw the world as a great circle; she placed herself in the center of it and contemplated Jesus, the immaculate victim, who offered Himself from every part of the world to the Father through the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
She called this means of elevating herself to God "The Greatest Circle". With incessant prayer, she participated spiritually in all the Masses being celebrated in every part of the world. She united with love the sufferings, hard work and joys of her own life to the sufferings of Jesus Christ, concerned that His Precious Blood would not be shed in vain.
The Charism
We can summarize the charism of Rosa Venerini in a few words. She lived consumed by two great passions: passion for God and passion for the salvation of souls. When she understood that the girls and women of her time needed to be educated and instructed in the truths of the faith and of morality, she spared nothing of time, hard work, struggle, and difficulties of every kind, as long as it responded to the call of God. She knew that the proclamation of the Good News could be received if people were first liberated from the darkness of ignorance and error. Moreover, she intuited that professional training could give woman a human promotion and affirmation in society. This project required an educating Community and Rosa, without pretense and well before its time in history, offered to the Church the model of the Apostolic Religious Community.
Rosa did not practice her educational mission only in the school but took every occasion to announce the love of God. She comforted and cured the sick, raised the spirits of the discouraged, consoled the afflicted, called sinners back to a new life, exhorted to fidelity consecrated souls not observing their call, helped the poor and freed people from every form of moral slavery.
"Educate to save" became the motto that urged the Maestre Pie Venerini to continue the Work of the Lord intended by their Foundress and radiate the charism of Rosa to the world: to free from ignorance and evil so that the project of God which every person carries within can be visible.
This is the magnificent inheritance that Rosa Venerini left her Daughters. Wherever the Maestre Pie Venerini strive to live and transmit the apostolic concern of their Mother, in Italy as in other lands, they give preference to the poor.
After having made its contribution to the Italian immigrants to the USA from 1909 and in Switzerland from 1971 to 1985, the Congregation extended its apostolic activity to other lands: India, Brazil, Cameroon, Romania, Albania, Chile, Venezuela and Nigeria.
—Excerpted from ©Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Highlights and Things to Do:
- Read more about St. Rosa:
- Find out more about the Congregation of St. Rosa Venerini, "Maestre Pie Venerini", also known as the "Venerini Sisters." Her remains are at the Motherhouse in Rome, Italy.
