Before being beatified, before becoming a foundress, before becoming a mystic, Mother Speranza is a great woman who devoted her life in the name of a Love - her love for the merciful Lord, which filled her and at the same time overwhelmed her. On November 5, 1927, she wrote in her Diary: βI spent part of the night outside myself [in ecstasy] and very closely united with the Good Jesus. He told me that I must succeed in making him known to people not as a Father offended by the ingratitude of his children, but as a loving Father who seeks in every way to comfort, help, and make his children happy and follows them and seeks them with tireless love, as if he could not be happy without themβ (Diary, no. 2).
And so, just like Saint Maria Goretti, in this 2024 that prepares us for the 2025 Jubilee, Blessed Mother Speranza too is a witness of hope; she is light not only beyond, but also within the darkness, and teaches us that the final word never belongs to hatred, but always to love!
The Sanctuary of Merciful Love
The future Mother Speranza is only 12 years old when she has a vision of Saint ThΓ©rΓ¨se of Lisieux, who urges her to spread devotion to Merciful Love throughout the world. Following the invitation of the Good Jesus, on August 18, 1951, she arrives in Collevalenza (PG): the Lord wants her here to fulfill a dream: the first Sanctuary in the world dedicated to his Merciful Love. Here she meets many pilgrims seeking a Father who forgives, forgets, and does not keep account. And for each and every one of them, she becomes a βflute that plays; the Lordβs doorkeeper; a handkerchief that dries tearsβ¦β.
She welcomes and receives more than a hundred people each day, listening to them one at a time, comforting them, offering advice, and instilling hope: Β«The Lord loves all souls with the same intensity; he loves even more those souls who, despite being full of faults, strive and struggle to be as he wants them to be; even the most perverse, abandoned, and miserable person is loved by him with immense tendernessΒ».
The Pools: water that heals the soul and body
In a place like Collevalenza - which has always suffered from a lack of drinking water - Jesus also desires that a well be dug on the top of a hill: it seems an almost impossible undertaking, but amid many difficulties and with profound faith, the drilling rigs reach the water. On that occasion, Mother Speranza, having gone into ecstasy near the well, utters words of heartfelt thanksgiving. Mother Speranzaβs boundless trust in Merciful Love, which is capable of healing body and soul, is contained in the prayer that accompanies the act of drinking the Water of Merciful Love:
Β«My Lord and my God,
through your love and your mercy,
heal us, for we are your children
from every illness, especially those
that human science cannot cure
and grant that, with your help,
may we always keep it pure
our soul from every grave sin.Β»
And so, for us who live in this time marked by so much evil and darkness, Blessed Speranza of Jesus is a sign of light: she reminds us that we are beloved children; she reminds us of the true face of God, who is Merciful Love.
