Rome (Italy).On 13 March 2025 will be held the 5th appointment of the Salesian Thursdays at the Auxilium – iin presence and online – on themes of pedagogy, spirituality, and history of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, proposed by the Studies Center on the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians of the Pontifical Faculty of Education Science «Auxilium» in Rome.
This edition is at the beginning of the Triennium in preparation for the 150th anniversary of the first FMA missionary expedition(2024-2027), whose events are organized by the Studies Center on the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA) In collaboration with the FMA Institute’s Missions Sector. Cronogram 150th Missions FMA
Mother Yvonne Reungoat, Superior General Emerita of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, will speak about Sister Maria Troncatti, artisan of reconciliation and peace. Awaiting the date of her canonization, she will present her paradigmatic and strong experience of educative holiness, which generated peace in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador.
Blessed Maria Troncatti was a missionary in equatorial Amazon from 1922 until her death on 25 August 1969, due to an airplane crash. With modest training as a nurse, acquired to care for the Italians wounded in the First World War, she was tireless in her sacrifices to reach where there was need, overcoming with faith, fears and dangers. The opening of a clinic and hospital was a necessity that had been ignored by the authorities.
From the beginning of her apostolate, by helping and begging, Sister Maria knew the hard law of the jungle, with the categorical imperative of revenge. Together with the FMA religious and the Salesians of Don Bosco, she focused primarily on education as a way and door for the evangelization of the jungle.
Over time, she became the madrecita buena (good little mother) able to “become all things for all” (1 Cor 9:22) and to “mix in” (EG, n. 87) with the Shuar and the colonists, to make germinate between the two ethnic enemies through education and care, the evangelical culture of encounter (Querida Amazonia 22), of fraternity, peace, and life.
The Salesian missionaries and the FMA had made the school and the boarding school a “free zone” from the law of the jungle and oppression; a place to grow in friendship, respect, and forgiveness for the Ecuadorians of the future. They were sure that the past pupils, returning to their kivarie, would bring a new lymph, based on a mentality inspired by the Gospel and thus gradually limit secular vendettas and abuses.
Indeed, in 1930 for the first time in Macas, a Christian marriage was celebrated of two young Shuar, by their own and free choice, no longer predetermined by the contract of the families.
Mother Yvonne’s reflection highlights how from her death offered for peace, a new and lasting strength developed that changed the relationship between the Shuar and the settlers through her mysterious operative presence among her ‘children’.
“Sister Maria Troncatti, who had been an authentic artisan of reconciliation, of awareness of the dignity and responsibility of women in every context, today continues to challenge us and encourage us so that we may boldly tread the paths of communion, of development, of care for life in all its expressions with particular attention to the promotion of the feminine world with the passion of Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello.”
The meeting is broadcast online from 18:30 (Italian time) and remains available on the Youtube Channel Centro Studi FMA.
Grazie mille, suor Grazia e Madre Yvonne. Questo incontro é una vera opportunitá di conoscere dal di dentro, il cuore missionario e l’impegno reale, concreto, che ha portato suor Maria Troncatti a diventare una vera FMA generatrice di vita. Lei é stata veramente
una donna consacrata generatrice di vita. Grazie di quest’opportunitá che ci date di poter approffondire nella missionarietá del nostro istituto.