"Mama," announced Mary one evening after a meeting of the Immaculate Conception society, "I am going to leave home."

Her mother looked up from her sewing. The children stared in mute surprise.

"Fr. Pestarino is going to allow some of us girls to live together in the cottage he owns near the church. He told us tonight. And I have decided to be one of them."

"And what are you going to do there?" her father asked skeptically.

"Live as a religious. During the day we will take in village girls to teach them religion and sewing and cooking. The rest of the time we will spend in prayer, like nuns."

"And starve!" he suggested.

"Oh no, Papa, we won't starve. We'll get a little something for teaching the girls, enough to live on."

"But are you going to teach fancy sewing? You don't know it yourself, dear," broke in her practical mother.

"Oh, we're going to learn it, Mamma. Mr. Campi, the tailor, is going to teach us, and the seamstress in Mornese is going to show us how to cut and piece dresses. So, you see, we can do it."

"My dear, I'm worried to death!" muttered her mother.

"Now, Mama, you know there's nothing to worry about! We'll live just like religious, so God will take good care of us! Just think of all the good we can do the girls of Mornese. We can make fervent Catholics out of them, and good housewives!"

"It wouldn't be a bad idea if you became a housewife, Mary," chimed in Mr. Mazzarello.

"No, Papa!" was the girl's decisive answer. "You know I've never wanted that. It's not my life. Oh believe me," she pleaded. "This is the life I have always wanted! I know God wants me to follow it!"

"Very well, Mary," sighed her mother quietly. "We won't stop you if that is really what you want. But," she struggled to choke a sob; "we will miss you at home. And I suppose I'll worry night and day about you."

Mary kissed her mother. "Please Mama, there is nothing to worry about. God will be with us!"

And thus the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians had their lowly beginning: a handful of young peasant girls, with only the love of God to warm them, living together in rudimentary religious life, sharing a small cottage which they proudly called "The Immaculate Conception House," taking in small village girls to teach them their religious and domestic duties.

Even begging was necessary for the "Sisters" in those hard beginnings. Mary often knocked at the door of her own home to ask her mother for food. With tears in her eyes, Mrs. Mazzarello would heap steaming dishes of meat and vegetables into her daughter's arms and Mary would kiss her and say, "You are a darling, Mama!" Then she would turn her back on the warm hearth to return to the cold cottage.

Through those crucial days, only one thing kept the new community together and gave them a charm that gradually won the hearts of even the most skeptical of the villagers, and that was the love of God. It served them as fuel, nourishment, and comfort.

Don Bosco drew up the first rules of the new community in 1867. Mary Mazzarello, then thirty years old, was considered the natural Superior or Mother, though of course her position was very informal. Yet Sister Petronilla, who had grown up with Mary in the fields and always shared her most intimate secrets, asserts very resolutely that most, if not all, of the community's good humor, patience, fortitude and absolute trust in God came from her.

July 31,1872, was just a normal day for the farm folk of Mornese, but a day that would make the town famous. In the chapel of the new school, which had been built by Father Pestarino and, on Don Bosco's advice, had been turned over to the Daughters of the Immaculate Conception in spite of the vigorous protests of the village fathers, fifteen young women knelt in anxious anticipation before the altar. This was to be the day of their mystic espousals with Christ. In the sanctuary sat the Bishop of the diocese; near him stood Don Bosco, the saintly priest of Turin who advised Fr. Pestarino who steered the new congregation through troublesome beginnings.

The fifteen young ladies arose. Mary Mazzarello, her face radiant with joy, hardly showing her thirty-five years except for a few stray wisps of graying hair that showed from under her bonnet, went first to the Bishop's chair. He handed her the new habit, which she herself had devised and first sewn together: upon her head he placed the veil of Sisterhood. And she arose Sister Mary Mazzarello. One by one, the other heroic young women stepped forth to receive the habit. When the last one had donned the black outfit that would always mark her out in life as one of God's chosen, Mary Mazzarello arose, and with her companions, uttered vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. The promise she had made to God at her First Communion was now complete! She was infinitely happy. God had told her what he wanted.

The new Sisters received their official name of "The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians." Their work was clearly outlined for them by Don Bosco: they were to consider themselves as the complement to the work of the Salesian Fathers and Brothers founded by Don Bosco in Turin, and what the Salesians were doing for boys they would do for girls.

There was as yet no duly elected Superior in the community, so, before leaving, Don Bosco asked Mary Mazzarello to assume temporary charge - to the joy of the Sisters and her own embarrassment. She objected, alleging her ignorance as an excuse, but, on the Saint's reassurance that it would be for only a while, she humbly acceded to his wishes and became Mother Mary Mazzarello.

The temporary job lasted two years. And then the wisdom of Don Bosco's choice was apparent, for in the first elections of the Congregation, Mother Mazzarello was chosen to be the first Superior General by a unanimous vote - except one - her own! The temporary job became permanent.

Mother Mary Mazzarello remained Mother General until her death. In those seven years she endeared herself to her sisters by a genuine, deep-seated humility and extraordinary sense of motherly understanding. The conviction that she was a peasant girl, fit only to do the humblest task, never left her and gave her every work and action an attractive pleasantness that took the barb out of correction, sweetened even a gentle reprimand, and won all hearts to her. The little incidents of her life, cherished by the Sisters as a precious heritage, have long become a byword in their communities and, when looked upon as a whole, form a marvelous portrait of a woman who had the heart of a mother and the soul of an angel.

One day a postulant ran into her room. On the verge of tears, she exclaimed: "Mother, I have to go home - today!"

Mother Mazzarello looked up in surprise. "Why, my dear, what's wrong?"

Gradually the story came in bits between sobs, a combination of homesickness, and childish worry. Mother explained it all to her.

"But I still want to go home!" the girl protested.

"Well, now, there is no sense in dashing off before you even know your own mind. Why don't you stay with us for month on vacation? Then we'll pray together, and if you want to return home after that, I'll go with you myself. How's that?"

The girl agreed. She stayed and became a wonderful Salesian sister!

Catherine, a novice, had happily gone through her period of novitiate and was ready for her religious profession, when a storm of doubts overwhelmed her. She could not make up her mind; so many difficulties, worries, hesitancies shook her soul to its depths. She consulted her superior and her spiritual director, a Salesian Priest.

"Go ask Mother Mazzarello," was the answer.

She did. Mother analyzed the problem and unquestionably told Catherine it was all a temptation. "Take your vows, Catherine," she concluded.

But Catherine could not make up her mind. She went to her superior again and once more manifested her doubts.

"What did Mother Mazzarello say?"

"To go ahead, because these are only temptations. But I cannot!"

The Sister tried repeatedly to assure Catherine, to no avail. The temptation was grave, and the girl was evidently suffering. Just then the spiritual director of the house entered. Catherine repeated her bitter story. The priest listened patiently. Then, kindly taking her hand, he told her firmly: "Mother Mazzarello gave me a message for you this morning: 'Tell Catherine that she is to receive the habit and make her vows. God has called her to do a great deal of good.' Well Catherine, now you know God's Will. The decision is up to you."

"Yes, Father," the girl answered slowly. "I'll do as Mother says."

Seven years later, Catherine Daghero was elected Superior General to succeed Mother Mazzarello on her death.

Wash day was not a private affair in Mornese; everyone did her laundry in public at the mountain brook that skirted the village. Squatting low, the housewives would dab their linen with homemade soap, beat and scrub it vigorously on the flat rocks, and rinse it in the icy stream. It was a village event and a rather noisy one at that. But at the end of the chattering line of women, one could see a small group of the new Sisters washing the community laundry, and in the group Mother Mazzarello, the superior, industriously banging away at the soiled clothing, absorbed in her task, chatting amiably with her companions.

"But, Mother," one Sister complained, "you shouldn't be scrubbing clothes like the rest of us. Look, everyone is pointing at you."

Mother smiled. "Now, child, don't be so curious as to see who's pointing at us. And what if they do? Am I any better than you or the other Sisters? I am just a peasant, and there is no sense in my putting on airs."

No, Mother Mazzarello was not one to put on airs. Her humility was real. Studiously she attended class with the other Sisters and learned how to read and write. Though she was naturally quick, it was no small task for a woman of thirty-five to learn the elements of her language, and she made silly blunders, but she would laugh them off with the other Sisters and persistently try again.

Her lifelong friend, Sister Petronilla, one day asked her, "Mother, don't you think our community is becoming too important? Look at all the intelligent young ladies who are entering - all of them with years of schooling."

"Hush," whispered Mother Mazzarello as though afraid of being overheard. "Not so loud! You and I are just plain oxen. Let's be thankful that they don't throw us out!"