OUR FOUNDER:

• Motivation
• Mission
• Mound
• Maturity

Maturity

By his 44th birthday, Fr. Mazzuchelli had returned to his most rewarding work, offering pastoral care to the local people. He took up residence in Benton, WI and within two years, the sisters had joined him to open a district school, which thrived. Encouraged, they opened St. Clara Academy, a frontier academy for young women, a few months prior to Fr. Mazzuchelli’s 48th birthday. He served the school as architect, contractor, superintendent and astronomy teacher (securing scientific equipment more current than any other school in the state—e ven the University of Wisconsin).

Although the geographical region Fr. Mazzuchelli served had shrunk over the years, the population had become greatly condensed. He presided over countless marriages, baptisms and funerals—often making long journeys in the middle of the night to tend to the ill, particularly during dangerous cholera epidemics. He continued to design and build churches throughout the area.

A few months after his 54th birthday, the country erupted in civil war. Fr. Mazzuchelli spoke out against slavery, even drafting educational dramas to provoke discussion on the topic. In the community he served, many had lost husbands and sons to the conflict, but all longed for a unified country.

At Fifty-Seven

Just weeks before his 57th birthday, Fr. Mazzuchelli was visited by Mary, the mother of God, who offered him encouragement and direction for his mission; though several sisters witnessed his radiant face and heavenly speech, he shared the details of the miraculous experience only with his confessor. Shortly afterward, two friars at Sinsinawa initiated a movement to restore the province Fr. Mazzuchelli had founded. Fr. Mazzuchelli did not live to see the results of their petition nor the end of the Civil War.

In the winter following his 58th birthday, while in the midst of a Lenten fast, the priest was called to attend to an ill, elderly woman at her prairie home. On his journey, he contracted a cold that quickly developed into pneumonia. The sisters maintained a prayer vigil over their founder. On Tuesday, February 23, 1864, Fr. Mazzuchelli recited Psalm 84. How appropriate was the line, “ Blessed is the one who finds his strength in you when he sets his heart on the sacred journey.” By 5:00 a.m. his journey was ended.

When they prepared his body for burial, the sisters discovered an iron chain clasped around Fr. Mazzuchelli’s waist, a private hardship meant to remind him of the physical suffering of Christ. The loss of his leadership and vision was widely mourned in the community and noted by the national press. The people that Fr. Mazzuchelli had helped kept alive his reputation for holiness, taking the first steps in what has become an international effort to have him officially recognized as a role model for the Catholic community, a saint.