Fr. Samuel's Life Reflects Mercy
The stained glass window in St. Joseph the Workman
Cathedral, La Crosse, WI, depicting Fr. Samuel
Mazzuchelli with Native Americans.
When we think of Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, OP, we remember his many remarkable accomplishments, his architecture, his foundations, his efforts to obtain justice for the Native Americans, or . . . the list is almost unending! But I had not thought of him in the light of his mercy. Of course, when I think of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, I could quickly list his many acts of mercy—to the Native peoples, and to the poor, whether French fur trappers or Irish miners, or German farmers, or orphans and widows.
But there is another, deeper quality of mercy evident in Fr. Samuel’s responses to those near and dear to him, at times when they disappointed or failed him. It is perhaps in the moments when Mazzuchelli could have become bitter or resentful because of the failures of those he had counted on; it is then that his remarkable generosity of spirit, his mercy, becomes most evident.
Fr. Samuel wrote once, about his beloved Lord: “When everything fails, He never fails the one who hopes in his infinite kindness and mercy.” It surely was only Fr. Samuel’s conviction that God’s mercy never failed that enabled Fr. Samuel to respond as he did when some of the most challenging moments of disappointment and apparent failure occurred:
- when the new Bishop of Chicago, William Quarter, refused him permission to establish his college and new Dominican Province in Galena (1844);
- when the three Italian Dominicans recruited for his new province quarreled among themselves and left (1847);
- when Father Francesco Mazzuchelli, OP—the nephew whom he had supported in the seminaries of Baltimore and Milwaukee, and who was to be his “right-hand man” in the new college and province—left (1849);
- when the first two Sisters of his new foundation of Third Order Dominican Sisters—Seraphina McNulty and Ermeline Routanne—left (1849);
- when Fr. Samuel gave over the property and ownership of Sinsinawa Mound College and his leadership of a new Dominican Province to the Dominican Fathers of St. Joseph Province, seeing himself “incapable of governing” (1849); and
- when three of the four Dominican Sisters from Somerset, OH, left the little community within months of their arrival (1855).
Fr. Samuel’s responses to these may be studied in Sister Paschala O’Connor’s Five Decades or in Sister Mary Nona McGreal’s [OP] biography of Fr. Samuel. Just to consider two or three, we know that when Bishop Quarter refused the plan to establish the new province and college in Galena, IL, Samuel simply moved to purchase Sinsinawa in the new Diocese of Milwaukee. But he generously continued his ministry in the Chicago Diocese, building St. Michael and St. Mary Churches and St. Rose Academy in Galena and sending the Sisters to teach there.
Similarly, when Father Paul Farinacci, OP, and, later, Fr. Samuel’s own nephew, Fr. Francesco, sought forgiveness and requested a return to Sinsinawa, Fr. Samuel graciously welcomed them, even naming Fr. Farinacci as vice president of the Mound College.
When Sr. Seraphina, Prioress of the little Benton, WI, community, “gave up” and thought the Sisters should disband, Fr. Samuel left it all in the hands of the remaining Sisters. He graciously gave Sr. Seraphina the use of the little convent at New Diggings, WI, until she could arrange for her own departure, and he offered to assist each of the others who also chose to leave. After a day of prayer and reflection, Sister Clara Conway, OP, urged the other three to “abide by the decision of the youngest”—Sister Rachel Conway, OP. Well, you know the end of that story, as the four “cornerstones” decided to stay.
Sister Mary Paynter, OP
Vice-Postulator for the Cause of
Beatification for Ven. Samuel Mazzuchelli