Mother Eugenia
Elisabetta Ravasio

San Gervasio d'Adda (now Capriate San Gervasio) is a small town in the province of Bergamo, Italy, near Sotto il Monte where Pope John XXIII was born.

Bettina is sent to nursery school. For many years she stands out only because she is much thinner and smaller than average, and no one knows the numerous trials she will have to undergo spiritually and materially. The first trial awaits her at the end of the school year, when the nuns ask the children to choose which craft they prefer to give their parents for the end of the year feast: a basket, a frame with their own photo or a frame with the Sacred Heart. She eliminates the basket right away, and the two frames remain on the list: me or the Sacred Heart? It seems a trivial matter, but for Bettina it is an existential choice between herself and God: “I would have really liked a picture of myself, since it would have been the first picture in my life! But if I put my picture I couldn't put Jesus… I was so undecided, but in the end I said: No, that's enough, the others have chosen their picture, I want Jesus! And so I made a frame with the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus”. This is her first struggle and her first victory. From now on her hesitations disappear, and she will go ahead on the road she has chosen - Jesus - always more determined. When I am older I will be… In the Ravasio family it is time for spiritual reading. Father Carlo is reading the story of some missionaries and the numerous conversions they managed to obtain with their sacrifices and their heroic charity. As he continues to read he sees that Bettina becomes sadder, so he asks her if she is feeling sick and he tells her to go to her room. He receives an answer which he doesn't expect: “No, daddy, I'm not sick; but I'm thinking that when I am older all the people on earth will be converted and I won't have anything else to do on my mission!” “But you are so little, you can't understand these things”.

The little girl climbs onto a chair and says: “Daddy, when I am older I will become a missionary!” - “But first you must eat a lot of polenta…” concludes father Carlo smiling. Bettina is little and no one takes her seriously, but she has clear ideas: she will eat “a lot of” polenta without bread, but when she is older she will become a missionary, just as she had decided.

1st Holy Communion

In May 1913 a messenger of the pastor brings unexpected news to the Ravasio family: little Elisabetta must go to the parish church on the following day to receive her First Communion. This is strange, because the other children are ten years old and they have received a long catechistic preparation, while Bettina knows nothing about catechism and she isn't seven years old yet. But the pastor's orders must not be questioned: “Grandfather started preparing me to receive Jesus. The next day my mother dressed me in a white dress I had already worn, she fixed it up with a white veil on my head and a light blue sash. I went to church and at Communion time I went to the altar too, but when the pastor came to me he hesitated because, even though I was standing up, I was shorter than the others who were kneeling. However, he gave me Holy Communion just the same, and then I withdrew to a corner of the church to talk to Jesus, as my grandfather told me to do: I felt something great, an arcane feast, an immense joy, an immeasurable love for Jesus, I felt heaven was inside me and with me, everything was singing, it was a great mystery of splendour”. At the end of the ceremony she returns home and abruptly regains contact with earth: “At home I didn't find anything different from other days; everyone was taken up by their usual Sunday chores. They only asked me if I was happy and they urged me not to dirty my dress”. Later on the pastor calls Bettina and asks her why she went to receive Communion. They therefore discover that there was an error of homonymy with a cousin of hers, but in God's plans there are no such errors: Jesus wanted to take possession of his Bettina and He found the way to reach his goal.

Confirmation 

After a few months Bettina receives her Confirmation. This time it isn't the pastor's messenger who makes an error, but the rulers of the whole world who have decided to make war. Not knowing how things would end, the Bishop of Bergamo orders all children aged seven and older to receive their Confirmation: “I did a bit of catechism. My sponsor fell ill and died the day before my Confirmation. A relative of mine accompanied me hastily to receive my Confirmation, then she brought me back home and offered me a glass of wine (which I didn't accept), then she took off my white dress and went back to her housework. At home I found my mother who was better and everyone was at work just like any other day. I started to do my housework and in the meantime my friends were still celebrating with their gifts and I with tears in my eyes. I only savoured the intimate joy of the sacrament I had received with the Bishop's anointing”. With what bitterness does mother Eugenia recall that “glass of wine”, the only gift her improvised sponsor gave her! However, she also has a vivid memory of what the Bishop said on that occasion, because “grandpa Piero always used to tell me those words”: “The Homeland has called its soldiers to war in its defence. Jesus has made you his soldiers so that you may defend your soul and always keep it pure. You have received the Holy Spirit a while ago and he will always be with you to fight against the enemy…” Only God knows how many battles Bettina will have to fight.

Calvary begins 

The temperament which Bettina receives is exceptionally hard. She is now a normal child, who walks and talks like other girls, only that she is physically less developed than average. In contrast with her small stature, a large cross awaits her and it will accompany her for the rest of her life. She finds her cross right away, at home. Her sister Teresa married when she was five and her mother, being ill and therefore unable to carry out all the housework, remained without the help of her eldest daughter and therefore slowly teaches Bettina to do the work, making her do practically everything, except the cooking. Bettina washes the dishes, does the shopping, tidies up the house by coming up with original ways to make the beds which are too big for her. This is already a lot for a little girl and furthermore a feeble girl, but it is child's play compared to how hard it is for her to do the laundry. The washtub is the Adda river, which runs a thirty-minute walk away, and Bettina has to go there twice a week with baskets of laundry on her small shoulders, which because of this heavy weight will undergo a slight deformity which she will have for the rest of her life. And then there is the cold weather, that dreadful cold which makes her little hands swell and freezes them, forcing her to use her teeth to turn the socks, belonging to the seven men who are at home, inside out. The greatest problem is wringing the sheets and she works this out with the help of the other women who also go to the river and who are touched when they see that little girl struggling with clothes which are much bigger than her.

Grandfather's Guidance 

Bettina's mother instils fear in her, her brothers do not understand that this little girl needs someone to take care of her, to talk and play with her. Bettina, who possesses so much vivacity, feels condemned to solitude and silence. 

Perhaps even this contributes to arousing in Bettina that terrible sense of fear, especially during the night, which will never leave her. Her only comfort and refuge is her grandfather Piero, the only one who, at least partly, can understand her. He has an infinite tenderness for his granddaughter and showers all the treasures of his spirit on her childlike soul. 

Perhaps God allowed Bettina to remain isolated so that she wouldn't be corrupted by even the shadow of sin: grandfather Piero is the only one worthy of moulding her, and in fact he becomes her first spiritual director. 

Bettina's grandfather's teachings and words will remain imprinted in her heart and mind; after seventy years she will remember them in all their freshness: “Grandfather used to speak to me about faith: Jesus is in everyone and everywhere, try not to ruin the leaves or the flowers because God has created them; don't let anything waste or spoil, don't throw anything away, but use everything for the glory of God in his creation and providence. Use everything, let all your work yield and, above all, do it well because God's eyes are constantly watching over you…”. 

Grandfather Piero sees and feels his granddaughter's suffering, but he cannot spare it from her; he can only help her to accept it and use it in a supernatural way: “…pointing to the Adda river which can be seen flowing from my garden, grandfather said: Look, Bettina, the water you see flowing downwards today will not be seen tomorrow, it's not the same water. Therefore your crosses, tribulations, struggles and tears of today will pass and be sure not to keep them still, because tomorrow you will have other ones. Everything passes, accept the will of God day by day, do not ever become discouraged. Remain with God and God will remain with you. What more do you want?”. 

One day Bettina, aware that her grandfather is working in the sun on the farm land, goes to draw cold water and brings it to him, certain that he will be grateful. But she is disappointed when her grandfather, after having smiled at her and thanked her, pretending to drink, brings the flask to his mouth but then lets the water fall on the ground. The little girl notices 18 19 and returns home sad, she feels offended and betrayed in her love. In the evening her grandfather looks at her and takes her aside smiling: 

“Are you angry with your grandfather? Why?” “Yes, grandpa, I am angry because today I went so far to get some fresh water for you, and instead of drinking it you let it fall on the ground!” “You see, Bettina, I was so thirsty because I had been cutting the wheat since four o'clock in the morning without drinking a drop of water; but the souls in purgatory have been suffering for a longer time than me; and I gave them to drink”. The souls in purgatory will be one of Mother Eugenia's deepest devotions, and there is no prayer that she will direct to the Lord without ending it with: “…and save the souls in purgatory”.

The educational qualification you can get in San Gervasio is the third grade and all children are sent to school because it is needed in order to be able to work in a factory. At the age of eight Bettina goes to school, and she must thus add her studies to her work at home. Up until the third grade she manages to succeed, but during this year the teacher thinks it is best to use her as a part-time maid by making her perform various tasks, among which doing her daily shopping.

Without being able to study at home because she had no time and without being able to follow the lessons at school, Bettina sees looming in the horizon the most galling humiliation of her childhood:

 “In addition to the work I had to do at home, I had to work without being able to study at school. On the day of my examinations all my schoolmates passed except me! What affliction! Yes, affliction, even because after the age of twelve you couldn't attend school anymore, and without a third grade certificate you could never find a job in any factory”. 

She returns home crying and, even if her parents and brothers don't say anything to her, she can't hold back her tears. They try to console her by pointing out to her that there is already a lot of work for her to do at home and her mother cannot do it alone, but they obtain the opposite effect: they cannot understand that for Bettina not going to work in a factory means not being able to prepare her missionary trousseau in order to become a missionary when she is 20, just as she has decided. Still crying, she collapses on the stairs and slowly falls asleep: 

“Around three o'clock in the afternoon, leaning against the wall, I fall asleep and in a dream I see Jesus who, drying away my tears, says: Don't cry anymore, my little girl, and don't ever call anyone teacher. I will be your Teacher now and always, I will teach you everything, and you will only know what I will teach you. If someone else wants to teach you something you won't understand it and you won't keep it in mind. Then, passing his holy hand across my face, as a caress, he continued: Remember that I am your only teacher. I woke up and I felt I was another person, all happy and content”. 

And Jesus must have been an excellent teacher for her, if Bettina will manage to design hospitals and an entire city; if she will discover new medicines; if she will write pages of profound theology in Latin; if she will give long lectures in various languages, among which Arab. And what about her third grade certificate? Bettina is not a type to give up in the face of a defeat: “I studied by myself a little each day, in secret, during the summer. In October I showed up at the exam and I passed”.

A month before her twelfth birthday Bettina is hired in the Crespi factory, one of the biggest textile manufacturers in Italy whose factory is located an hour from San Gervasio, in a town which will be called precisely Crespi.

There are nine working hours with alternate weekly shifts, the first from five in the morning to two in the afternoon, the other from two in the afternoon to eleven at night. The work at the looms is exhausting, it is done standing up and it requires considerable attention as every thread that is out of place ruins the homogeneity of the fabric; for every error there is a fine and, if there are too many errors, you are fired. 

In addition to the nine hours of work, Bettina has to add another two to go and come back from work; and for lunch she only has a bit of cold polenta without seasoning or bread. Actually, her father, to whom she gives her salary in an envelope just as she receives it, gives her fifty cents each day to buy herself something to eat with the polenta; but this change, which she puts aside for months with so much perseverance, is used to purchase some pieces of fabric from the factory which Bettina then sews at night in order to prepare her trousseau. 

Her missionary ideal is ever growing in her mind, but she knows that in order to go on a mission she must become a nun; to become a nun she needs a trousseau;

 in order to buy her trousseau she needs money she doesn't have. The only money she can use is the fifty cents she receives every day for food, which for eight years is regularly sacrificed for her missionary ideal. For years Bettina will only eat polenta, however she will reach the goal she has fixed for herself. In order to sew her trousseau (which she keeps at a friend's house) she must work in secret after doing all the other chores which await her punctually when she comes home from work: clothes to wash and iron, house cleaning, clothes to mend. She manages to sleep for two or three hours at the most. 

This continues until the age of twenty and in her is emerging ever more the strong woman, the indomitable fighter who will accomplish legendary feats for the Father's glory. 

The Father's Smile

Meditating on this description could create the image of a girl who was toughened by work and suffering, but this would be the most distorted and unreal image: Bettina is all smiles. She has learnt to live values which will be the basis of her spirituality: “I must be the Father's smile”; “The useful tears are not the ones that fall down but the ones that go up” (that is, not the ones that are shed, but the ones that are offered). 

Having grown taller, she remains very thin, but she has an inner luminosity which shines through on the outside and which conquers. More and more she acquires a noble spirit which is reflected in her posture, in her manner of speaking, acting and smiling. Even though she dresses very modestly she manages to give her clothes a touch of natural elegance which arouses jealousy in her friends. She has something that distinguishes her and that makes her stand out among the crowd. And many young men are disappointed when they learn that Bettina is going to become a nun. The first is Eugenio Crespi, the boss's son, whose love will remain faithful for this poor worker who - as in the most beautiful fairy tales - the King wants for himself: a week after the proclamation of the feast of Christ the King, on the last Sunday of October 1927, Elisabetta officially says goodbye to everyone. 

During Sunday mass the pastor, giving the announcement of her departure for the novitiate, concludes saying: “Christ the King has chosen his queen”.

Postulant 

Bettina enters the missionary institute of Our Lady of the Apostles in Lyons, France, founded by Father Planque in 1868, who has recently opened a house for novitiates in Bardello, Italy, in the province of Varese, in an old castle abandoned a long time ago.

Her new life begins amid disappointments and bitterness; Bettina is soon convinced that the crosses she left behind in San Gervasio have followed her to the convent, and are revised and greater in number. These consist in the difficulty she has in learning French; in a communal life not characterized by the charity which she expected; in the most absurd and unworthy reproaches; in the cold which makes her hands bleed and full of chilblains; in the vegetable soup - the only thing that she could never eat at home - which she now must eat at breakfast, lunch and dinner; lastly, in the mice, snakes and carrots. And at this point we must make a digression. 

The new postulant is sent to sleep in the room which gives access to the old tower which, throughout the decades of abandonment, has become the dominion and pasture of all the mice of the old castle. During their nocturnal raids they find an extraneous body - a bed - along their tradi - tional path, and they naturally climb over it in a continuous to and fro. Nobody has told them that Bettina is under the covers, scared stiff, and she doesn't say anything to the Superior for fear that she will have an unpleasant reaction. 

When the night finally ends, and with it the terror of mice, a new day begins with the terror of snakes. 

Bettina is given the task of removing the ivy which has covered all the walls and the ancient tree in the garden: she must take the climber from the base and pull until it comes off the wall and trunks. The job is rather simple and it would be child's play, if there weren't a lot of snakes nested between the ivy and the plants which - having suddenly woken up from their hibernation which has just begun - fall on Bettina along with the long shoots of ivy. Their number is a mystery because they never end and they fall down at every tug. Perhaps the first ones, evicted, have nested on the trees that still have to be cleaned; the fact is that Bettina, having overcome the nightmare of mice, only has the time to prepare herself for the nightmare 24 25 

Novice 

Bettina's probationship ends quickly and it is time for her novitiate which, with the taking of the veil, also involves a change of name. The name, which is chosen by the Superiors, is communicated during the official ceremony. “Your name will be Eugenia”. This is a shock for our postulant: in San Gervasio there is only one abnormal person, who is treated as the fool of the village and it is a woman whose name is precisely Eugenia. Bettina accepts this as well, without batting an eyelid. On the other hand, she receives the applause, not very liturgical, of her former boss and admirer who went to attend the ceremony with a large representation from the factory. As if that weren't enough, he also shouts “well done!” which leaves the priest, nuns, relatives and those present speechless: few people know that his name is Eugenio and that the name chosen for the novice is the only thing that he will have in common with Bettina, even though he is no longer her boss but still a devoted admirer. 

The Profession

The two years of novitiate are about to end, however there is much hesitation in letting the novice Eugenia make her vows. She is considered too weak, too thin and always ill; perhaps not even very intelligent, given her inability to hoe the carrots and learn French. There is talk about sending her back home and she isn't given permission to prepare her veil - the symbol of total consecration to God - like the other girls: “What sorrow! My friends were preparing their veil and I wasn't; hidden tears, moaning, prayers … I was waiting for the day and hour… and I hoped”. 

If the nuns hesitate about admitting her to the profession it means that they haven't understood the miracle which Grace has performed in the spirit of their novice who, without even realizing it, has penetrated in the heart of the Trinitarian mystery. We can infer this from a story she herself tells with enchanting simplicity:

 “When I was a young girl I found that the Our Father was too long and moreover, that Father who was always angry which I had in a picture above my bed scared me. Going to Heaven with that Father was scary! And poor Jesus, what a stern Father he had! Well, I will say the Hail Mary… During the last months of my probationship I felt persecuted by the images of the Eternal Father which followed me everywhere, one more severe than the other… How many punishments I used to receive because we had to memorize the prayers in French but I just couldn't learn the “Notre Père”. Close to my taking of the veil of 8 September 1928, by means of the holy rosary which I liked to recite but also meditate, the Most Holy Virgin made me understand that Catholic and especially religious life is not only a contemplation, but an entering into communication and participation with the Divine Family. But for me, a poor ignorant person, entering into the Divine Family seemed to me audacity and presumption.