Rome (Italy). In line with the Synod on: Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment (Cf. Working Document nos. 213-214), this month we share the second study on the journey of accompaniment of the youth of our Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God.
Sr. Teresa Valsé Pantellini: A youth lived in the search for the true meaning of life.
Teresa Valsé Pantellini had everything to be happy: a high social position, an intelligent mother who led her to the theater and the salons of the Roman bourgeoisie, the benevolence and affection of the family, the cultural education in the best female schools, a villa to spend the summer holidays with the service staff available, the opportunity to travel in Italy and abroad, gifts of intelligence and grace, a degree of autonomy in decision-making, and an excellent marriage proposal at the age of 20.
But she did not allow herself to be seduced by the criteria of this world. Starting from the resources that nature and society had given her, Teresa began to search for the true meaning of her life and, after perceiving the light, decided ‘irrevocably’ to enter a poor religious educational Institute to give her life to girls who were not as lucky as she was. She proposed to go ‘unnoticed’ among them and among the sisters in order to do only good, discreetly and in silence, in imitation of the One who had called her to follow Him more closely.
Someone might wonder: was her choice a capricious refusal of a bourgeois life? A wrong decision? A youthful rebellion against the family? None of this! Her life experience is still today a light for us and for the young because it is the fruit of a long and arduous discernment, accompanied by God and by wise guides whom she met during her young life.
