"Let us approach the manger to adore him….On Christmas Night, the child Jesus was placed in the manger: this was the first exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, before whom the first adoration was made." Blessed James Alberione, SSP

"May we always turn to Mary, our Mother, Teacher and Queen, in all our spiritual and material necessities. Let us take Jesus from her most holy hands and ask her for the grace to understand and practice well the devotion to the Divine Master, who became an infant out of love for us."Mother Thecla Merlo, FSP

"We are in the Advent season: let us try to follow the liturgy and prepare ourselves for Christmas through intense prayer,  prayers well said and lived. And let us unite to our prayers some sacrifices so as to prepare ourselves well to receive the Child Jesus." Mother Thecla Merlo, FSP

"Jesus made himself small in order that he might be loved and that we would not feel awkward in appealing to him….One is more daring with those who are small….Let us also remember that the Child Jesus is found in the arms of Mary."Venerable Mother Thecla, FSP  

Four or five years after I entered the Daughters of St. Paul, I met Mother Thecla Merlo, our Co-Foundress. (Yes, she was still alive when I entered! We are a young religious congregation—only 101 years old.)I didn’t know much about Mother Thecla then, although I noticed how patient she was with me as I tried to express myself in halting Italian. Only later was I able to read the first biography written about her, where I discovered much more about her holiness.Mother Thecla was deepl...

Maria Teresa Merlo was born at Castagnito (Cuneo, Piedmont) on February 20, 1894, the second of four children of Hector Merlo and Vincenza Rolando. On June 27, 1915, she met Fr. James Alberione for the first time in the Church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in Alba and accepted his invitation to remain in the city to help him begin the “adventure” of our congregation: the future Daughters of St. Paul.On July 22, 1922, she professed private, perpetual religious vows and took the name ...

In 1994 we Daughters of St. Paul celebrated the centenary of the birth of our first Superior General, Maria Teresa Merlo, or Maestra Thecla, (Maestra meaning Teacher, as she was called by us and Thecla, the name she took for profession).Back in 1915, when she was 21, the Holy Spirit opened before her a completely new future when he guided her steps toward Father James Alberione in the town of Alba in Piedmont. In the previous year Father Alberione had gathered around himself a group of...