Our beginnings

Mother Teresa’s dream

was to build a community

that lives the Gospel

– a small church that lives

a communion of love…

Her wish to become one with Christ

the Suffering Servant…

Maria Teresa Spinelli was born in the centre of Rome on the first day of October 1789. She was the youngest of a family of nine children, of whom only four survived. She received her education at the Maestre Pie Venerini. In the wake of the French Revolution, Rome experienced an economic setback and as a result the Spinelli family suffered great poverty. At sixteen her parents married off Teresa to Luigi Ravieli, a violent man with revolutionary ideas.          

 Although she was often beaten and threatened by her husband, Teresa managed to suffer in silence and offer everything for his conversion. But the neighbours filed a report to the authorities and the young woman was ordered to live separately from her husband. Teresa found herself once more living with her parents where she gave birth to Maria Domenica. Her financial status led her to go and work as a ‘wet nurse' with a noble family. Later she became a governess of their daughter.

Some time later she returned home to care for her elderly parents who were ill devoting herself at the same time to prayer and to works of charity.

On the first day of November 1820 she had a vision and received the call for evangelisation. She wished to open a school at Ferentino where she was already well known, but while praying she heard a voice telling her ‘it is not in Ferentino that I desire you, but in Frosinone.' Invited by the Town Council, Maria Teresa opened her first school for girls in Frosinone in 1821.

On the 23rd September 1827 she founded the Congregation of the Augustinian Sisters, Servants of Jesus and Mary, with the specific purpose of the education and Christian formation of youngsters.

After a life dedicated to the service of God and her fellow humans, she died on January 22, 1850.

Through her daughters, the Augustinian Sisters, the seed sown by Teresa has grown over the years into a huge tree that has spread its roots into the five continents, to continue the mission begun by this simple woman filled with courage and the love of God.

CHARISM  By identifying with Jesus Christ, the obedient suffering servant of God, we the Augustinian Sisters, Servants of Jesus and Mary, want to participate fully in the Mystery of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of his Church. Christ's desire was to fulfill his Father's will even unto his death on the Cross. We do this by offering ourselves to the Father, in Obedience to our Superiors, by our service to the People of God and to the world as a model of a small Church being, as our Constitutions tell us “united in heart and soul in the ardor of charity”