The Collegio
One day while walking along Borgoalto, she seemed see before her a great building with all the appearances of a boarding school for numerous young girls. Amazed, she stopped to look at it and said to herself :" What is this that I see? This building was never here ! What is happening?" Then she heard a voice saying :" I entrust them to you!" Maria quickly ran away and tried not to think about it anymore, but the picture those young girls was always there, as though they were calling her, especially when she would pass by that road. (from: Cronistoria Ist. FMA).
The Collegio is the first Mother-House of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. With the approval of Don Bosco, Fr. Pestarino built it as a boarding school for boys. The project was decided upon in 1864. Fr. Pestarino spoke of it in the church exhortig the people of Mornese to help in the construction of the building. Later, Don Bosco decided that it would become the house of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. On May 23, 1872, they moved into the building. Maria Mazzarello and her companions became the first Daughters of Mary Help of Christians on August 5 of the same year.
Upon entering the grounds of the Collegio, one can see the old arcades. The last 4 arches were once part of the first Chapel of the Collegio which Fr. Pestarino dedicated to Mary the Sorrowful Virgin. Here, on August 5, 1872 the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians was born. In the presence of the Bishop of Acqui, Don Bosco, Fr. Pestarino and other priests, 11 novices among whom Maria Mazzarello, made their religious profession. On that occasion, Don Bosco said : "Now, you are a part of a religious family that belongs to Mary. You are few, poor in means and deprived of human approval. Do not worry. Things will change very soon (...) I can assure you that the Institute will have a great future if you will remain simple, poor and mortified." (Cronistoria dell" Istituto delle FMA)
THE CHAPEL TODAY. The restoration work was done from a plan made by the engineer Don Innocenzo Timossi who, through a linear style of architecture was able to highlight the fundamental elements of St. Maria Mazzarello’s spirituality. In the presbytery there is a tabernacle which was built using the marble, pillars and mosaic of the old Chapel. It bears characteristics of the "Tabernacle -Cross" because Tabernacle and Crucifix make up one single entity. At the center of the small apse there is the statue of Mary Help of Christians. The Eucharist can never be separated from devotion to Mary. The Church was born at Pentecost while Mary was in the Supper-room with the Apostles. The stained glass windows, made by the craftsman Franco Cristiani from a design by the painter Nino Marabotto, speak of the "Spirit of Mornese" and of Maria Mazzarello's life.
Here we can see also the altar and the balustrade of the primitive chapel of the Collegio. On this altar don Bosco celebrated Mass for the first time when the chapel was blessed and again on December 13, 1867. At this balustrade, Maria Mazzarello and her ten companions consecrated themselves to God on August 5,1872, giving birth to the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.
MOTHER MAZZARELLO'S ROOM. Mother Mazzarello occupied the room from 1872 to 1879. It is small and simple. It still tells us of that time when, after learning how to write at 35years of age, she would come here to write to her Sisters who had just left for the missions in Latin America. Her great heart was never imprisoned by the limits of this room. Here, she nourished the desire to be a missionary. Maria Mazzarello never went to the missions, but was, instead, called to leave this house and her hometown to go to Nizza, the new seat of the Mother House.
THE WELL. The well, now restored, provided water for the first community of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. It has become a symbol of the poverty of the early times: a real poverty where even the simplest necessities were lacking. They carried on, however, in a radical, evangelical spirit.