Mother Rosetta: journey of holiness in the name of filiality

Rome (Italy). 8 March 2025, marks 41 years of birth into Heaven of the Servant of God Rosetta Marchese (1922-1984), VII successor of Saint Mary Domenica Mazzarello at the head of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

 The pivot of her spirituality, Christocentric and Marian, is filiality. Throughout her life Mother Rosetta contemplated Jesus in His being “Son of the Father” and desired to become a “daughter of the Father” too, because she was “daughter in the Son”. In fact, she lived with growing awareness what every baptized person can experience if they open themselves and collaborate with Grace: the Holy Spirit incorporates us into Christ the Son.

In a page of her 1976 Notebook, it is noted how filiation predominated in her relationship with God the Father and with Mary:

“Little girl with her mother
Daughter with the Father
Bride with the Son
In listening, pure docility with the Spirit
Nourishing myself with the Word of God
Heavenly Father in the Heart of Mother,
in all the love of the Holy Spirit,
I offer myself with Jesus as a total gift to your justice of love.”

She herself, in a typewritten text without date, tells how Jesus “Son of the Father” served as a common thread in her Salesian life. In 1944; 1951; 1965 were the passages of Grace in which the Spirit carved into her soul the Face of Christ.

Jesus gave her the Word: “Who has seen me, has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9) until she penetrates, through the liturgical prayer of the Gloria, into the mystery of Jesus “Son of the Father”.

She wrote, “I have before me the stages of this path traced by Him: the Exercises of the triennial vows, when, reading and meditating on the Gospel of St. John, I was all taken by the feelings of Jesus towards the Celestial Father and it was the beginning of the slow work to remove me from myself in order to throw myself into the penetration of the Heart of Jesus, seen like this.

Then, towards ten years of profession, the words of Jesus to Philip: ‘who sees me, sees the Father,’ opened up to me the Mystery of the Trinitarian Life and Jesus led me in the joy of Their presence in me, but very imperfectly lived and understood by me.

Then, six years ago, Our Lady opened me to the Holy Spirit and then the Mystery of the Three became more and more familiar to me. On July 24 of ’65, reciting the Gloria during Holy Mass, at the expression, “Son of the Father”, I felt as though all the tenderness of the Father poured out itself on my soul and from that moment Jesus gave me a more intimate participation in His sentiments for the Heavenly Father. Since then, every day my invocation to the Holy Spirit has always been this and I feel I can say I have always lived with this unique passion to identify myself with Jesus in His love for the Heavenly Father!”

Mother Rosetta was attentive to the work of the Holy Spirit in her. All concentrated in Jesus, she understood that the meaning of her life was not to be a teacher, a vicar, an animator, a Provincial or a Mother General in the various places where obedience sent her, but to cooperate fully with the work of God in order to conform to the sentiments of Christ (cf. Phil 2:5) in daily life. She wrote in a notebook, “First I am Rosetta of Jesus and then the Provincial.”

She let herself be challenged by the Word of God and the liturgy, which shaped her entire existence and marked the years of her religious life with that openness to the newness of God that the Acts of Chapter XXIV of the FMA define as “docibilitas”.

Among the typical traits of Jesus the Son, Mother Rosetta contemplated Jesus who exults with joy in calling God ‘my Father’ (Lk 2:49) and feeling deeply loved by Him. Even the Servant of God rejoices in calling God ‘our Father’ (Mt 6:2) when she remains abandoned and closed in the groaning of the Spirit (cf. Rm 8:15).

In the notebook of 18 August 1965, she wrote:

“Heavenly Father! When I pronounce Your Holy Name, an immense sweetness pervades my soul. But it is Jesus that pronounces it in me and pronounces it in all the tremor of love of the Holy Spirit. Holy Father! how my little soul feels immersed and closed in this tremor. May I remain gently abandoned, no longer seeking anything else. Even when, especially when it will be silent in me, the more powerful will be the tremor of the Spirit and You, Holy Father, will see Jesus in Your creature.”

In her Salesian life, Mother Rosetta has been a living memory among the youth and laity of the joy of belonging to the Lord. In a letter to Sister Luciana D’Auria of 8 December 1961, she wrote:

“I want to be a radiant soul; to spread around me the joy of my vocation, the joy of belonging exclusively to Jesus and Mary. […] how much desire I have to transmit this joy to all the souls …”

With her heart wide open to sonship, docile to the Word of God, Mother Rosetta walked her journey of conformation to Christ that made her a passionate and happy herald of God’s love among the Sisters and young people.