Tommasini:
"A woman who lived interculturally"
Photo of Mother Tommasini in the Sacred Heart’s characteristic “grand bonnet.” Courtesy of the Society of the Sacred Heart Archives.
Introduction
Mother Maria Stanislas Tommasini, RSCJ, lived a remarkably global life shaped by political revolution, spiritual devotion, and a lifelong commitment to education and care. Entering the Society of the Sacred Heart at the age of nineteen, her career spanned over six decades and five countries. Known for her linguistic skill, cross-cultural adaptability, and administrative leadership, Tommasini played a formative role in establishing and sustaining Sacred Heart communities. She would go on to serve the international congregation for over six decades, working in Italy, France, the United States, Canada, Cuba, and Mexico. Her life offers a compelling window into the global reach of 19th-century Catholic women’s religious life and the daily challenges and opportunities it presented. Tommasini’s letters, spiritual writings, and institutional records illuminate the contours of a life lived in movement—across borders, languages, and cultures.
Cardinal Farley, the Archbishop of New York, first met Tommasini when visiting the Monastery at Manhatanville. After her death, he wrote to her community there,
“You asked me for my impressions of the dear reverend Mother Tommasini whom I venerated as a saint….I knew little about convent life at the time, being only a very young priest, and I did not really realize that a nun could be so completely indifferent to human respect. It was only later that I learned how holy she was, as well as how wise and capable she was in every respect in her government and the various offices entrusted to her.”
– From the preface to the Mémoires de la Révérande Mére Maria Stanislas Tommasini (Roehampton, 1918)
Early Years and Entry into Religious Life
Born in the Duchy of Parma in 1827 to Giacomo and Angelina Tommasini, she came from a deeply pious family. Tommasini’s mother, a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic, was described by her daughter as “a saint of heroic virtue.” Though two of her sisters would eventually enter the Society of the Sacred Heart, Tommasini’s own path to religious life was far from predictable.
“Moi, j’étais l’enfant terrible,” she later wrote in her memoir – referring to her unconventional behavior that often exasperated her parents. She also described herself as “lively, cheerful, always on the move, proud, impressionable, and irrepressible,” though she was also “generous” and always ready to admit her faults.
Her early memories of her youth brim with humor and candor. She loved flowers, music, and dancing—though the latter was strictly forbidden by her parents. A local marquis once told her mother she would one day be a great singer, which prompted her mother to restrict her singing to the litanies of the Virgin Mary. Her father tried to instill in her a love of the saints, but their stories “did not appeal.” She was a terrible catechism student, vain about her hair, and much preferred arranging flowers to going to confession. Despite this unruly spirit, she fondly recalled the love and guidance of her mother: “Without her, I would be lost.”
Her visits to a local Sacred Heart convent with her mother and sisters planted the seeds of her vocation. She enjoyed reading and teaching hymns to children there, and after her sisters joined the Society as Coadjutrix Sisters, she began to feel that it might be her path as well. A profound turning point came when she sat at the deathbed of her sister, who was wasting away from a long illness. She said to her: “Little one, I am leaving you my vocation. You will replace me and be so happy.” Tommasini was deeply impressed by her sister’s holiness, fearless embrace of death, and confidence that she would soon be with God.
Tommasini’s mother took her to the Sacred Heart Mother Superior to ask if she could be admitted as a Coadjutrix Sister, remarking with hesitation, “You may find her too merry and irrepressible.” But the Mother Superior replied that “a nun must indeed be happy!”
Tommasini entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in Pinerolo, Italy, in 1845. Although she was initially admitted as a Coadjutrix Sister, her intellectual gifts were soon recognized and she was transferred to the choir religious track. Her formation was guided by Anna du Rousier, a leading figure in the Society’s missionary expansion to South America. Meeting Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Society, also had a lasting impact on her.
Mémoires de la Révérande Mére Maria Stanislas Tommasini (Roehampton, 1918). Courtesy of the Society of the Sacred Heart Archives.
Revolutionary Upheaval
Tommasini’s early religious life coincided with a period of profound political unrest. The Revolutions of 1848 swept across Europe, challenging both monarchic and papal authority. In what is now Italy, revolutionary uprisings—motivated by nationalist, liberal, and anti-clerical ideologies—sought to unify the peninsula and reduce the influence of the Catholic Church in public life. For religious communities like the Sacred Heart sisters, the period was marked by suspicion, surveillance, and frequent harassment. As Tommasini recalled:
“Our attachment to the royal family was a great grievance against us. We were also accused of corresponding with exiled priests, of teaching our students stupid religious practices, of holding unpatriotic meetings in our house; when the emissaries of the secret societies came to question us on this point, they did not hesitate to tell us that we were lying.”
In Piedmont, anti-clerical mobs threatened religious communities, forcing Tommasini’s convent into sudden exile.
“Morte agli scuffoni!”
“Death to the grand bonnets!” came the cries from the street, a reference to the large bonnets worn by Sacred Heart sisters. When the sisters were forced to abandon their habits and flee ingonito, disguises had to be found in haste—Tommasini donned a mismatched outfit assembled from old the convent’s costume wardrobe used for student plays: a wool dress patterned with red flowers, a white shirt fastened with little gold buttons, and a white tulle bonnet trimmed in satin. Because her hair had been shorn, a wig was prepared for her journey so that she would not attract unnecessary notice.
As the revolutionaries rioted outside the convent walls, she and the Reverend Mother spent the night quietly clearing out their archives—preserving what was essential, destroying the rest. By morning, Tommasini had joined seven others on a long-distance diligence coach bound for Chambéry, traversing snowy mountain passes in the dead of winter.
There, at the Chambéry Sacred Heart convent, she encountered Mother Constance Jouve, niece of Saint Philippine Duchesne. When Jouve asked for volunteers for the American missions, Tommasini did not hesitate. She had already been stirred by Duchesne’s letters from her St. Louis missions, which awakened in Tommasini a deep longing to serve abroad as a missionary herself.
From Chambéry she was sent to Lyon, and then on to Paris, where a second hurried departure demanded another disguise—this time from a trunk of garments left behind by students. Mother Madeleine Sophie Barat, the Society’s founder, gave Tommmasini her personal approval to begin her career as a missionary. She was just twenty-one when she left for New York to join Mother Mary Ann Aloysia Hardey, who was seeking an Italian teacher for the Sacred Heart school at Manhattanville.
Looking back, Tommasini interpreted the upheaval not as misfortune but as divine orchestration.
“If history could be truly written—whether that of an individual, a nation, or the entire universe—it would be the elucidation of God’s hidden Providence using events to procure His greatest glory.” The Revolution of 1848, she wrote, “deprived my beautiful and pious Italy of so many holy places,” but in doing so “led to the extension of devotion to the Sacred Heart in America.”
This journey marked the beginning of her life in diaspora and service—a life of movement, adaptation, and profound faith, embodying the global call of 19th-century Catholic women’s religious life.
Global Missionary Work
More coming soon
Tommasini’s scapular, given to her by Mother Madeleine Sophie Barat, foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Courtesy of the Society of the Sacred Heart Archives.
