Vatican City – On Sunday, October 19, 2025, on the occasion of World Mission Sunday, Blessed Maria Troncatti will be proclaimed a saint by Pope Leo XIV. Sister Troncatti’s holiness is demonstrated by the fact that she was a mother to all and a tireless missionary who worked daily for peace and reconciliation, as the motto chosen for her canonization states.
“We are deeply moved and grateful for this gift: the first FMA saint after the co-foundress, strengthens us in our faith, in the certainty of the fruitfulness of the gift of the Holy Spirit that Don Bosco and Mother Mazzarello transmitted to us,” said Sister Maria Luisa Nicastro, Secretary General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians , who shares the joy of this gift with in an interview with Fides. “Beyond limitations, difficulties, and deficiencies, we see in Sister Maria’s holiness what we are called to be before we do anything,” she continues.
“Sister Maria, in all stages of life, focuses on love for the crucified Christ and on the hope that He has already conquered evil, sin, and death.
Therefore, with her unwavering faith, she prayed to him and, with all her devotion, obtained healings that are almost miraculous. Sister Maria encourages us to believe, to live in the conviction that the Holy Spirit, in us and through us, accomplishes the miracle of transforming the world into a civilization of love.”
“As we contemplate the most beautiful face of the Institute—Saint Maria Domenica Mazzarello, Sister Maria Troncatti, who is about to be canonized, and our Blesseds and Servants of God who lived with complete fidelity according to the Constitutions of the Order—we open our hearts to the great hope, with the grace and boldness that come from God,” explains Sister Chiara Cazzuola, Superior General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, in a circular letter to members of the Institute.
Referring to Pope Leo XIV’s recent Apostolic Exhortation, “Dilexi Te”, in which the Pope emphasizes that holiness is the fruit of caring for the poor, who have always been considered a “treasure of the Church,” the FMA recall that Blessed Maria Troncatti, the “Good Mother,” as she was called by all those close to her, considered the poor, orphans, abused young women, the dying, among others, her only concern. For them, she was willing to face dangers and hardships, demonstrating her maternal love by personally caring for each one.
A Mother, Artisan of Peace and Reconciliation, she lovingly served the Shuar people for 44 years, sharing her journey of holiness with them as a Salesian missionary. Choosing her vocation and leaving home were very difficult moments for Maria and her family. “She was a woman who was clearly aware of her calling by God to be a missionary. She felt like an instrument of God, so with her hands and her wisdom, she healed, healed, and did all the good she could,” said Sister Rosita Molina, FMA of the “Sacred Heart” Province in Ecuador, Vicar of the San Domenico Savio House in Sucúa, founded by Blessed Maria Troncatti.
“I can summarize her missionary life in one sentence: Maria Troncatti was a missionary according to God’s heart,” said Sister Rosita Molina. “Her vocation grew at home, within her family, through reading the Bulletin of the Salesians of Don Bosco, which her teacher gave her and which she read with her family,” the nun continues, noting that since childhood, Maria Troncatti had been fascinated by the missions of the Salesians of Don Bosco and the Salesian Sisters around the world. “She discussed these topics with her sister Caterina, who didn’t want her to leave, but in her heart she already dreamed of being a missionary among lepers in the East.”
She was eventually sent to Ecuador, as prophesied to her on her deathbed by a young student at the boarding school in Nizza Monferrato , where Sister Maria worked as a nurse. Since arriving in that country, she consciously lived her mission by caring for the local people and proclaiming the Gospel among them. During the transfer to the Ecuadorian rainforest, which was crucial for the safe passage of her entire group, it was Sister Maria Troncatti’s intervention, removing a bullet from the body of a Shuar native’s daughter, that impressed him so much so that he assured her and her fellow sisters of protection until they reached Méndez. She founded a small hospital in Macas and protected children with disabilities, whom she personally adopted. Later, she continued her evangelization work in the Seville mission and did the same in Guayaquil, in a completely different reality. Finally, she reached Sucúa, where she realized her dream with the “Pius XII” Hospital, built in collaboration with the Salesians of Don Bosco and thanks to the support of her family and, not least, the Holy Father, after whom it was named. “There, she carried out incredible missionary and medical work!” reports Sister Rosita Molina. Even in old age, she was visited by her beloved “children.” “I can no longer work,” she said, “but I am happy to stay with my poor wild animals: They come to the hospital even when they are sick, and they always come from far away to visit me.”
“Not only was she aware that she had been called by God to be a missionary, but she was also a woman of prayer; she was intuitive. It was enough for her to look into the eyes of the person who came to the hospital or whom she visited to recognize their needs,” says Sister Rosita Molina about the special characteristics that characterized Sister Maria Troncatti’s missionary life. “She was a woman who reached out to others. Her room was by the window, close to the street; at any hour of the night, people knocked because they needed medicine, because they wanted her to come to their home to help them, because they were dying, because a woman could not give birth. Sister Maria got up at any hour, took her suitcase, and went into the jungle, facing all the dangers, but with incredible love, like the great missionary after God’s heart.”
The canonization celebrations begin on Friday afternoon at the Generalate of the Salesian Sisters in Rome with several speakers, including those by the Superior General, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, the Grand Rector, Father Fabio Attard, and Father Pierluigi Cameroni, Postulator General for the causes of beatification and canonization of the Salesian religious family. On Monday , the audience with Pope Leo XIV will take place in the morning, followed by a Mass of Thanksgiving in the afternoon in the Roman Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. It will be presided over by Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime , Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Apostolic Societies, and concelebrated by Cardinal Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera , Archbishop of Guayaquil, with the participation of bishops and priests from various dioceses in Ecuador and Italy.
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