Venerable Mother Guaini | Biography, Spirituality & Founder - Missionary Sisters of Jesus the Eternal Priest

MOTHER MISSIONARIES OF THE ETERNAL PRIEST JESUS

MOTHER MARGHERITA MARIA GUAINI, FOUNDRESS OF THE MISSIONARY SISTERS OF JESUS THE ETERNAL PRIEST

She was a woman of intense prayer, pervaded above all by a desire to experience prolonged periods of silent adoration before the Eucharist.

She remained faithful to her vocation, achieving a balance between the demands of an active and contemplative life. Her significant commitment to God never wavered.

"Throughout my life, I have always repeated this act of love to Jesus: 'Jesus, I love you so much, for myself and for everyone. Jesus, I trust in you! My whole life has been a "thank you" to you, my God, who let me love you. Jesus, I trust in you!

With a humble and grateful heart, I repeat: "O Jesus Host, our Love, I offer you to the Divine Father through Mary, in all the Holy Masses that have been celebrated, are celebrated, and will be celebrated, to thank you and to give you glory and love!"

(Venerable Mother Margherita M. Guaini)

The Venerable Servant of God Margherita Maria Guaini (born Alice Antonia) was born on 21 November 1902 in Ceto (Brescia, Italy), the first of ten children. In 1912 the whole family moved to Gozzolina (Mantua). After her mother’s death in 1923, the Servant of God cared for the family and began work as a nurse.
In 1925 she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity in Brescia, making her temporary profession on September 03,  1929 and her perpetual profession on November 19,  1932.
Grieved by the abandonment of the ministry by many priests, in 1938 she entered the Monastery of the Visitation in Brescia to offer prayer and sacrifices for priests. She made her solemn profession on April 12, 1939. In the following years she increasingly understood that the Lord was asking her “a mission to carry out”: to make everyone aware of the value of the Holy Mass, to promote spiritual participation in Christ’s priesthood, to esteem the work of priest‑ministers and to offer herself in prayer for the sanctification of priests.
Thus, in 1945 she received permission to leave the monastery and began work first in an orphanage in Rovato (Brescia) and then in Varenna (Como). In 1947 she moved to Atella (Potenza) to collaborate with Fr. Achille Fosco, who was about to launch the Pious Association of the Merciful for poor and abandoned youth. In the same year, with the diocesan bishop’s consent, the Venerable Servant of God and three other young women founded the Institute of the “Merciful Sisters of Jesus the Priest.” At that moment her election as Superior General was recognized and confirmed. They took as a house, a former Benedictine convent in Atella. From the start there were differences of view between the Venerable Servant of God and Fr. Fosco: he wanted a foundation with both a male and a female branch devoted mainly to charitable work, while she, besides charity, wanted the sisters to offer the Lord daily life in adoration and prayer for priests. The bishop therefore decided that the two realities should separate.
After an initial experience in the Diocese of Matera, in 1953 she moved the Mother House to Varallo Sesia (VC), where the bishop entrusted her with the convent and the church of “Santa Maria delle Grazie.” With the expansion of the Institute, which took the name “Missionaries of Eternal Jesus the Priest,” she proposed a path of spirituality both for priests—creating the Work of the Missionaries of Eternal Jesus the Priest—and for the laity, founding the Apostolic Movement “Nuovi” (MAN) to live their baptismal vocation more fully in harmony with Christ’s sacrifice. After renouncing the governance of the Congregation in 1990, she lived in the Mother House, awaiting in prayer and spiritual exhortation for her daughters.
She died on  March 02, 1994 in Varallo Sesia (VC).

The Venerable Servant of God was a woman of intense prayer, especially permeated by the desire to spend prolonged periods of silent adoration before the Eucharist, despite many commitments. Her journey of faith, characterized by deep surrender to God’s love, became an ever more intense reliance on the Lord. She remained faithful to her vocation, balancing the demands of active and contemplative life. Her deep trust in God never wavered. Her spousal love for Jesus transformed into maternal love for her spiritual daughters, for the Church and the Pope, in a path of perfection that led her to the sweetness of the end times.

The Holy Spirit gave a gift to Mother Margherita Maria Guaini, our Foundress, to accept and respond to a question mystically received from the lips of Jesus: "What use is my Blood if no one makes it count?" (cf. Psalm 30:10), by sharing the universal thirst of Christ the Priest for salvation, making known, appreciated, and lived the mystery of the Holy Mass, in which He, through the ministry of Priests, continues to offer His unique and universal redemptive sacrifice to the Father.