Today, November 13, is the memorial of Blessed Maria Teresa Scrilli.
Foundress of the Congregation of the Carmelite Sisters Institute of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
When Maria was born in 1825, her parents were hoping for a boy. Her mother, who wanted a male heir, treated Maria indifferently.
An unknown illness kept the adolescent Maria bedridden for almost two years. She was cured after seeing the martyr Saint Fiorenzo in a vision. Her long sickness allowed her to discern. She decided she was called to the religious life.
In 1846, against her parents’ wishes, she entered the Carmelite monastery of St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi in Florence, Italy. Though she loved the cloistered life, she realized she was meant for another type of religious life. After two months in the monastery, she left.
Upon returning home, Maria began teaching secular and religious topics to local girls, and effectively started a small school for them. While looking for a place to start a formal school, the town council requested her to take over a local school. The school formed the base for a religious institute.
In 1854, she founded the Congregation of the Carmelite Sisters Institute of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and took the name “Maria Teresa of Jesus” in honor of her fellow Carmelite St. Teresa of Avila.
In 1859, during a period of anti-clerical sentiment in Italy, her institute was ordered to be dissolved and the school secularized.
Maria Teresa was not discouraged by this difficult situation—which would stretch to almost 20 years. She knew God was on her side. God rewarded her hard work and patience when, in 1878, Maria Teresa resurrected her community in Florence, Italy. There, her group ran a school, boarding house, and Marian association, and lived a vocation of teaching, parish work, and visiting the sick.
She died of natural causes in 1889. She was beatified in 2006 by a Claretian, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, in Fiesole, Italy.