Blessed Maria Grazia Tarallo, mystic and stigmatist

Summary:

Maria Grazia Tarallo, in religion Mother Maria of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, was born in 1866 in Barra, today a district of Naples, Italy. She was the second of seven children born to Leopoldo Tarallo, a municipal gardener, and Concetta Borriello. Two of her siblings died in infancy.

She was baptised the day after her birth, and was given the name Maria Grazia (Mary Grace). Despite chronic material deprivation, her parents managed to give their children a decent Christian and secular education.

At the age of five, Maria began to feel the presence of Jesus and Mary close to her. She liked to accompany her parents to Mass, where she watched the faithful receive communion. Her desire to take part in the "Lord's Supper" grew more intense but the parish priest and her family told her that she was still too young. This caused her a great deal of grief.

However, she was allowed to make her first communion at the age of seven, which was quite exceptional in those days. She was filled with great joy on that day. Her deep faith and love of God were evident, but no one guessed that she had a vocation.

Her schoolmistress saw in Maria a very endearing and unique personality. The girl had a keen intelligence and a taste for prayer, silence and walks in nature, to the surprise of her classmates.

After primary school, Maria Grazia learned the trade of dressmaker, and then took part in the household chores as an adult. She sewed, washed and ironed clothes. She even found time to teach her sisters what she had learned at school.

At twelve, Maria was precociously mature. At an age when most teenagers don't know what they want to do with their life, she knew she wanted to become a nun, whatever the cost. Her contemplative vocation was already apparent before 1890. In fact, she became a third order Franciscan during her youth, learned to follow the liturgical offices every day, and prayed with the other members. It was an important step in her spiritual journey.

When she turned 22, her father, a pious but authoritarian man, tried to marry her off against her will. A young man called Raffaele Aruta had asked for her hand. Maria didn't know what to do: she didn't dare disobey her father but wanted to hold on to her vocation.

One night, she was  awakened by a voice telling her that the planned wedding would not take place. This was startling news, since the date of the civil wedding had already been set for April 13, 1889.

That day, the civil ceremony took place, then a festive meal. Maria bravely waited for God to act, as she know that he would not abandon her. Suddenly, to everyone's surprise, the bridegroom began coughing up blood. A doctor was called. The diagnostic was a serious lung infection and prescribed a cure in Greece. The young man went there, but died of tuberculosis shortly after.

Maria's father did not give up, and tried to impose a second suitor on his daughter. Maria asked him to revisit his decision in light of the death of the first one, which surely must be a clear sign that God opposed this plan. Leopoldo relented and let his daughter choose her own path.

On June 1, 1891, Maria entered the convent of the Crucified Sisters Adorers of the Holy Eucharist in Barra (district of Naples), a congregation founded in Naples to make reparation for sins and offences committed against the Church. She was accompanied by her sister Drusiana. Another "Tarallo girl", Giuditta, joined them in 1894.

As a novice, Maria Grazia edified the nuns of the convent by her humility, obedience and charity. She managed to adapt to community life and the order's rule quickly and effortlessly, in a way that exceeded her natural inclinations. In less than two months, she knew everything the novice mistress normally taught the postulants in a year, without ever having received the slightest training.

In religion, her name, given by Maddalena Notari, the founder of her congregation, was Sister Maria of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because the future blessed wanted to imitate Christ crucified and Our Lady of Sorrows. She used to say: "I want to end up being a saint, loving Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, suffering with Christ crucified and seeing Christ in others."

She was soon entrusted with various duties, which she carried out with brio and dedication: seamstress, cook, porter; eventually mistress of novices. Her favorite occupation was making hosts.

These varied tasks definitively shatter the idea of a detached mystic, or worse, of someone prone to mental delusions: Maria was perfectly at ease with reality and community life, as demonstrated by the quality of the relationships she maintained with the nuns, the clergy and her whole family.

She also began to write down her spiritual experiences, and immediately submitted her writings to her confessor. These pages contains both descriptions of mystical experiences and solid theological reflections. Maria's had a burning zeal for God, especially in the Holy Eucharist, and was saddened about the general indifference to the Incarnation and Passion of the Lord. She had a great desire to tell the world to open its eyes and realise how much God loved men. "Love is not loved because it is not known", she said.

Before entering the monastery, Maria Grazia had a vision of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by the seven founders of the Servites of Mary. In a dream, she saw nuns wearing the habit she herself would later wear.

Jesus communicated with her in the form of interior locutions. She offered herself as a victim for all sinners - whom she knew are so numerous - and for priests, some of whom had become unworthy, while others were in spiritual danger.

Her incredibly rich spiritual life never prevented her from working. She was a model nun. On March 18, 1903, she made her perpetual profession of vows. In twenty years, she left the monastery only twice: in 1894, for two years, to go with eleven other nuns to found a new house at Castel San Giorgio, and then again for two years, at San Gregorio Armeno, in old Naples, just after her solemn profession.

As time went by, without her ever giving up her daily duties, the extraordinary mystical events multiplied, becoming almost daily occurrences in the last months of her life: ecstasies, visions of Jesus and Mary, locutions and inedia (the ability for a person to live without consuming food, and in some cases water). She began to live only on the Eucharist.

One Friday in 1906, while she was mysteriously experiencing the Passion, she suddenly felt an immense pain all over her body, especially concentrated in her hands, feet, and head: the stigmata of the Passion had been imprinted on her body, and would stay with her until her death.

The sisters of the convent saw the Blessed levitate several times. The sight was met with mixed reactions, so unusual it was. Mostly, the nuns were amazed to see that on a day-to-day basis, Maria remained a normal, unassuming and kind person.

During that same period Maria Grazia suffered attacks from the devil. These were not just spiritual afflictions: she also received blows, lacerations and burns in several places. Unexplained bruises appeared, her muscles strained, limbs left paralyzed, and her temperature would change dramatically. Maria became increasingly exhausted. A deep wound in her arm required surgery, but the limb remained inert, except three days before her death, when she was seen raising her arm and making the sign of the cross.

God called Maria back to the convent of San Giorgio a Cremano, near Naples, at the age of 46, on July 27, 1912, the date she had predicted. Her parents were able to testify at her beatification process, which began in 1913, just one year after her death, under the direction of the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples Giuseppe Prisco. Saint John Paul II proclaimed the heroicity of her virtues in 2004. She was beatified by Benedict XVI on January 19, 2006.

An official exhumation of her body took place in 1919. It was found incorrupt, although her limbs were stiff; as soon as the coffin was opened, all witnesses smelled a sweet perfume.

The miracle investigated and ratified for her beatification was the complete and inexplicable recovery of a 21-year-old legally blind man, who suddenly recovered his sight when the relic of Maria Grazia's arm was placed over his eyes during the transfer of the Blessed's mortal remains to the monastery church in 1924. Two of this man's daughters became nuns in Maria Grazia's congregation.

Beyond reasons to believe:

Maria's entire existence was defined by love, sacrifice and devotion to others. Only the incredible depth of her faith and union with God can account for her inner strength and self-possessed attitude throughout her life.

Going further:

Maria Pia Notari, "Mi farò monaca". Maria della Passione, San Paolo Edizioni, 2005.

More information:

• Gregorio Penco, Storia della Chiesa in Italia, (vol. 2), Jaca Book, 1978.
• On the suorecrocifisseadoratrici.org website, the article " Beata Maria della Passione ".
• Tine Van Osselaer, "Bibliographical Dictionary of Stimatics", in The Devotion and Promotion of Stigmatics in Europe, c. 1800-1950, Brill, E-book, 2020, pp. 441-442.