Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero: "Little Secretary of Jesus' Merciful Love"

Born in Turin in 1885 to a very pious family, Benigna felt the desire to become a nun with the Visitandines from her youth. At the age of 17, and until her death, Jesus spoke to her regularly. She faithfully recorded their conversations in notebooks. These messages total 5,000 handwritten pages, without erasures. Two aspects of Benigna's spirituality are particularly noteworthy: the imitation of Jesus Christ and devotion to his Sacred Heart, lived with particular intensity in the Visitandine Order. As brief and unremarkable as it may have seemed, Sister Benigna Consolata's life was a constant dialogue and presence with Jesus, revealing the importance of a life hidden in God. She died in her convent in Como on September 1, 1916, and the Church opened her process of beatification in 1923. Shortly after her death, some of her messages were translated into several languages and distributed around the world.

Reasons to believe:

The visions began five whole years before she entered the convent: considering that the Visitandine order is wary of ultra mystics and screens their applicant carefully, we can conclude that Benigna was mentally balanced and healthy.

In 1916, Benigna was appointed assistant to the novice mistress: this proves that her superior trusted her human abilities and common sense.

The convent superiors not only trusted Benigna with responsibilities, they also believed in the reality of her mystical communications with the Lord. In fact they gave her special scheduled time each day to write down these messages.

Despite her thin theological knowledge, Jesus' messages and Benigna's own thoughts are doctrinally sound. She had received a good religious instruction growing up, but nothing like dogmatic theology or an advanced course on spirituality.

The messages she collected illustrate and develop three major aspects of the Catholic faith: the Communion of Saints, the sharing or distribution of merits (intercession), and the spirituality of the Sacred Heart.

Her humility, obedience and exemplary religious life have a Christological and ecclesial foundation that she herself explains: living in imitation of Jesus, and living the hidden, daily life of Nazareth.

A number of experts have endorsed her messages: Father Auguste Saudreau, a specialist in mystical theology, the Dominican Réginald Duriaux, a professor at the University of Fribourg, and Father Juan Gonzalez Arintero, a professor at the Angelicum in Rome.

Theologians emphasize the similarity and coherence between Benigna's work and that of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, even though Benigna never read the writings of the "little Flower". The content of Benigna's spiritual writings do not stand out in isolation but echo the other great modern apostles of the Sacred Heart, especially Josefa Menendez and Saint Faustina.

Summary:

Benigna Ferrero was born into a devout, practising Catholic family of Turin (Italy, Piedmont). She was the third of four daughters. Her mother, a strong believer and member of the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul Conference, devoted her free time to helping the needy and teaching catechism to children. She passed on to her four daughters her love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Benigna would become one of its great modern apostles.

The little girl showed great piety. From an early age, she had a spiritual director, the future canon Father Louis Boccardo, who helped her discern her vocation. At 18, in 1903, to her family's surprise, Benigna announced her wish to become a nun, but not just anywhere: she felt drawn to enter a Visitation convent. Thanks to the guidance of this priest over several years, she entered the Visitandines in Como (Italy, Lombardy) on December 30, 1907, and took the name of Sister Benigna Consolata. Ten months later, she professed her temporary vows.

Father Boccardo played a decisive role in her Christian formation, but also in the mystical way she was being led. It was he who first asked her to write down the messages she received from Jesus. The first autograph manuscripts date from 1902, before Benigna's entry into religion; this date proves that Jesus' locutions were not "inventions" or auditory hallucinations of an unbalanced person who had been "locked up" in a convent for too long. Furthermore, it invalidates the hypothesis that Benigna had psychiatric problems, because if this had been the case, the young woman would not have been admitted into a religious community, which is traditionally very cautious about any mystical phenomena. Finally, if Benigna had concealed her mystical communications in one way or another, it is hard to imagine why the superiors of the convent in Como would have given her permission to devote thirty minutes a day to them during the first months of her novitiate.

Benigna led a perfect religious life, based on respect for the rules of the Visitation, obedience to her superiors and confessors, and continual charity towards everyone. Nothing set her apart from the other sisters. She simply sought to give her life for the Lord, so that through every ordinary act of daily life, God's mercy could touch the world. "People are my brothers, my little brothers. I am good to everyone. I am very good to the souls who trust in me", Jesus told her.

Benigna's mission was the expression of God's will, the essence of which is revealed in the following message received from Jesus: "Men are making efforts, but the only cure forthis seriously ill society is to be found in my divine Heart. The world is running towards the abyss, but I will hold it back on its vertiginous descent thanks to a small army of generous souls who will fight under my flag. I am preparing the work of my mercy. I want a new resurrection in society and I want it to be the work of love."

Benigna's handwritten notes contain references to the saints of the Visitation Order, all apostles of the Sacred Heart: Saint Francis de Sales, whose work she knew well, Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, and the mystical revelations of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. The doctrinal solidity of the messages and thoughts of the woman nicknamed the "pencil of heaven" and "Jesus's Little Secretary" is inexplicable given the thinness of her theological background: although she had been catechized since childhood, she had never taken advanced course in dogmatic theology or spirituality. In 1916, she was appointed assistant to the novice mistress, a responsibility that proves her human qualities and the trust her superiors had in her.

Her death was as discrete as her life had been. Benigna saw Christian holiness as a "multitude of small acts", a perspective close to that of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. But, strangely, her popularity was born in the months following her funeral. People discovered the messages she had received from Jesus, and several people close to her testified to the evangelical life she had led. In 1918, the first biography was published in Como under the title Breve vita della Serva di Dio Suor Benigna Consolata Ferrero della Visitazione di Santa Maria in Como. While the first messages from Jesus were also published, the biography was translated into Spanish in 1921, and two years later into English.

That same year, Father Juan Gonzalez Arintero, a renowned theologian and professor at several universities, including the Angelicum in Rome, quoted it twice in his Evolución mistica. Dominican Father Réginald Duriaux, a professor at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), published a book in Lyon in 1925 entitled L'Apôtre de la miséricorde divine (The Apostle of Divine Mercy). Sister Benigna Consolata of the Visitation of Como, 1885 - 1916, a study of her doctrine. A few months later, the messages were translated into Polish, which led specialists to believe that Sister Faustina may have learned about them during her novitiate in Krakow (Poland).

From then on, the messages of Jesus traveled the world: Germany, England, Australia, China, Spain, France, Japan, Palestine, the Netherlands, etc. They were soon translated into ten languages. Not one bishop made the slightest complaint, observation or reservation.

Father Saudreau considered Benigna to be one of the most important continuators of Saint Gertrude the Great (d. 1301 or 1302), whose visions and revelations of Jesus had been decisive in the development of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and also of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. He wrote: "What is striking is the accuracy of the words she put into the Lord's mouth" (Letter of June 26, 1928, to Canon Boccardo).

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

Jesus told Benigna that, through prayer, the world can be "regenerated" in his Heart. She led a hidden life because Jesus asked her to: " I want you to be in the monastery what perfume is in flowers; the perfume that can be perceived even if it is hidden."

Going further:

Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero, a Professed Choir Nun of the Order of the Visitation, B. V. M. Como, Italy: Or "the Tenderness of the Love of Jesus for a Little Soul" byComo La Visitazione di Santa Maria Como, Italy, Forgotten Books, Classic Reprints, 2016

More information:

On the Prophecies for our time website, the article: "Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero (1885 - 1916): "I want to renew society.""
Mystics of the Church website page on Servant of God, Sr. Benigna Consolata Ferrero (1885-1916)
Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero, or, The Tenderness of the Love of Jesus for a Little Soul by M.S. Pine (Translator), John P. Daleiden (January 1, 1925)
The spirit of the servant of God, Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero: Drawn from her writings by Pierre Duriaux, ‎ Daleiden (January 1, 1926)