Mother Carmela Aprile
We have a most unique story to unfold about this contemporary mystic, her relationships to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Visitation Monastery of Rosolini!
Here is a woman, born in 1878 in poverty, widowed young, who buys an image of the Sacred Heart in a shop. This miraculous image becomes the center of her life, religious vocation and spiritual outreach, eventually becoming associated with the Visitation Order.
She was born Carmela Aprile in 1878 to Orazio and Giorgia Giamblanco, near Rosolini (in Sicily) Italy and was married at 18 to Joachim Gennaro by whom she had three children, two of whom died in infancy. For the sake of work her husband emigrated to Alexandria, Egypt, where he suddenly died. Carmela was a widow at twenty-five.
After this painful experience, and tried by poverty,she began her journey of authentic faith, full of devotion to God and to those who suffer.
Her new life began with the purchase of a painting in a junk shop ! A dealer who claimed to want to get rid of a picture, a modest German copy of the nineteenth century, depicting the Sacred Heart of Jesus, sold it to her, for a modest fee.
Carmela, twenty-seven at the time, placed it in the only room of her small and poor house.
She prepared an altar, and the room became the place where she gathered neighbors and acquaintances to pray the rosary in front of the sacred image. Several miracles, meanwhile, occurred around that picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Soon the house was the destination of many devotees, as well as skeptics; they obtained many graces and healings and conversions.
With the spread of this news many pilgrims began to arrive!. The turnout was so great that the parish priest, Don Vincenzo Sgadari, of venerable memory, and spiritual father of Mother Carmela, thought to transform the small house into a chapel and asked the Bishop of Noto, Archbishop Giuseppe Vizzini, for authorization to celebrate the Holy Mass.
Mother Carmela in the meantime, although not belonging to any religious order had been wearing a red religious dress in honor of the Sacred Heart. This caused some murmuring in the town so she was forced to leave and move to Syracuse to avoid accusations that were raised.
Countless were the requests and petitions to the Holy See, so that eventually Mother Carmela returned to Rosolini.
The little Sanctuary where she kept the miraculous painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was expanded, re-activated and the flow of the faithful became more numerous than before. It is said that Mother Carmela also received the gift of prophecy.
Mother felt that she was called to open her heart and the premises of the shrine to the poor and derelict in the years immediately preceding the Second World War.
For this and for good reason Mother Carmela April is remembered by all as the “Mother of Rosolini” and was the mother and spiritual counselor to many priests, religious, and faithful people from every part of Italy. Mother Carmela, an authentic contemplative, was always urging and welcoming all to trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
How did the Visitation Order get involved?
In 1959 the idea of founding a monastery of the Visitation for taking care of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart shone in the mind of Bishop Calabretta. He, who so appreciated the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, was convinced that this very religious family is the most appropriate to preserve and propagate the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as one of their members, St Margaret Mary Alacoque, had been the Sister to receive the revelations of the Sacred Heart. Archbishop Angelo Calabretta entrusted the sanctuary to the nuns of the Order of the Visitation.
Mother Carmela lived in a room adjacent to the Visitation Monastery.
Worn down by the weight of years, Mother Carmela died peacefully in Rosolini August 10, 1968.
A Movie of her Life
Currently a film is being made of the life of “Mother Rosolini” and the end of this month of September is the time of the usual festivities in her honor in Rosolini. The film will be distributed by FILMSHARK International, TF20 and Voila Producciones USA and is being directed by Roberto Garay. Casting began in the spring of 2013 and we will try to announce its premiere when we learn of it.
2024: Movie came out in 2018 You can find it here: https://gloria.tv/post/KmGMgWUcay7C1SkX7aAmaswrU?fbclid=IwAR06fHfPy_tDWQArI-4rd1Oy4glHJ11JoALwK2k2IO8PTk8zqkidczQywCc
This article in Italian features the early plans of the film’s development.
Source:
http://www.bbperladicorsosavoia.com/images/stories/dintorni/sacrocuore.htm