Interview with Sister Neusa de Fatima Mariano, superior of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo Scalabrinians
“We have received a legacy from Saint Scalabrini: a charism for our time.” Sister Neusa de Fatima Mariano, superior of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo Scalabrinians shares how, more than a century after the death of John Baptist Scalabrini, his life is still a beacon for those in the world who serve the most suffering humanity: migrant humanity. After founding the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo in 1887, the Bishop of Piacenza knew: “Their work was incomplete, especially in South America, without the help of the Sisters.” Supported by Blessed Assunta Marchetti and the servant of God Father Joseph Marchetti, he established the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo in 1895, recognizing the great value that consecrated women could bring to his missionary project in the world.
“We are the expression of the feminine face of the Scalabrinian charism towards migrants,” says Sister Neusa. “We have a special sensitivity, we feel and understand all the hardships that a woman can experience in the migratory journey, a journey that makes women and children more fragile and vulnerable”.
Why did you decide to become a Scalabrinian missionary nun?
I was born in Brazil and worked for many years with children and young people, in Christian formation, I was a catechist in my parish and belonged to youth groups, but there was a desire in my heart to do something bigger and to hand over my whole life to the service of God. I researched the congregations in the region of São Paulo and I was very impressed with the Scalabrinian Sisters. I met them and they were really happy and welcoming. I felt that that was the place where the Lord was calling me. Later, I got to know the spirituality of Scalabrini, his ability to see in the migrant the Lord and to work for their good. So, I became a Scalabrinian nun at the age of 21.
One of my first missions was in the outskirts of São Paulo, in the favelas. We would meet migrants and I was amazed at their hope, their courage and the trust they had in the Lord for a better life. They would open their homes and in simplicity offer what they had, despite their condition of poverty. They would tell us their story, the sufferings they experienced in the path of migration. In my being a Scalabrinian Sister, it was always important to take the first step toward the other, to listen to them, to enter into deep communion with their reality; I felt great joy when I saw that people come out of their isolation, out of their sadness.
How do you carry the Scalabrinian charism forward in the world?
We are present in 27 countries with more than 100 missions animated by Scalabrini spirituality, which is living communion in diversity. We see in every person a child of God and try to live the mystery of the Incarnation in the various realities of migration. Our choice is to reach out in a special way to refugee women and children, to be migrants with migrants, companions in their journey. In Rome we have opened a home for migrant and refugee women and their children, it is called Chaire Gynai, which means ‘Welcome, woman’ in Greek. One of them hugged me and crying said, “Thank you for what you are doing for us. This project saved me.” In this mother’s embrace, I felt the purpose of our mission: we offer them the possibility of a life that recognizes their dignity and opens paths to new opportunities. The Scalabrinian charism in the world is witnessed through socio-pastoral actions, it is manifested in solidarity with those who live the drama of migration, everything aims to create communion, to be with, for and among migrants and refugees sisters.
In recent years we have created a specific project of the Congregation: the “Itinerant Service,” present in border places, where there is more suffering: in Roraima in Brazil, in the northern and southern border of Mexico, in Ventimiglia in Italy and in Pemba in Mozambique. With this specific action, the Congregation offers its contribution so that migrants and refugees, especially women and children, in emergency situations and in vulnerable conditions, are guaranteed respect for their dignity, attention to their basic needs and access to opportunities for human advancement.
There is often a lot of distrust and closure toward those who are forced to migrate. Your mission, on the other hand, is based on relationship and welcoming the other.
Migration comes and brings with it structural changes: to welcome migrants is to have this ability to listen. Opening up to the other implies sharing our space, our cities, but also knowing how to value the beauty that each person brings. To enter into relationship with migrants also means knowing how to be moved by compassion, just as Scalabrini did when he saw Italian emigrants leaving for America. We women are much more sensitive to the suffering of others. Starting from our way of being women, we try to make Scalabrinian creativity flourish again with migrants and refugees who do not find answers to their problems, to their wounds, and we try to accompany them on their journey as Jesus, the Good Samaritan, does. When there are situations that we cannot solve, what we offer is this, “We are here, we stay with you, you can count on us.” The pain of migrants also becomes our pain, so too their hope is our hope. This is what Scalabrini taught us.
Pope Francis on October 9 will proclaim John Baptist Scalabrini a saint. What is the extraordinary nature of this simple man, a bishop with a father’s heart?
Scalabrini was in love with the mystery of God’s Incarnation: he continually contemplated the Son of God becoming man to reveal the Father’s love and to hand back to Him a renewed humanity. He was a man all of God and for God. He treasured the culture of migrants, the spiritual wealth they brought with them, to the point of saying, “In the migrant I see the Lord.” We have received this legacy, a charism for today’s time. When we read his writings, we realize that they are still relevant today. He was also a man of action: he knew how to involve the Church, the State, the laity, the missionaries, we Scalabrinian sisters so that everyone could do their part. It is nice that his canonization comes in this tough time of migration. It is an important sign that the Pope wants to give to the whole Church and to all humanity, a church that welcomes and walks with migrants and refugees.
