St John Bosco has long been my model for true Christian education. Gentle, empathetic, wise. I've read much about his work with boys, and even material about his mother who worked along with him. Somehow yesterday was the first I heard of St Mary Mazzerello, whom he was to train to do for girls the work he was doing among the boys. I found this wonderful story (there is also a booklet available) called Gold Without Alloy: A Brief Account of the Life of St. Mary Mazzarello by Paul Aronica, SDB online here.
"A hot Italian sun beat mercilessly on the handful of workers in the rocky field. Mopping the sweat off their well-tanned faces, they labored on, their hands burrowing into the soil, skillfully setting the delicate vines in place and tying them tenderly with wisps of straw onto thin sticks. But it was so hot in the glaring sun! Gradually, one by one, they began edging away toward the shade, till a single girl remained in the field, her sturdy, young body bent firmly over her task, her swift fingers deftly caressing the vines and sealing them into place. Now and then, as a lock of her black hair fell across her eyes, a quick movement of the hand pushed it back into place under a white kerchief - and then immediately back to work! "Mary," called a friend, "come on in out of the hot sun. It's much more comfortable here!"
Mary looked up. "But no work was ever done in the shade!" she laughed. "Since when have you all become afraid of the sun?"
"We're not afraid. We just prefer to wait till it sets lower in the sky!" retorted a young man.
"Cowards!" the girl in the field chided. "The sun is God's gift to us! You'll never have any wine this winter if you hide in the shade!"
A peasant woman laughed heartily. "Some girl, that Mary Mazzarello! She can beat anyone of us in the field, and that goes for the men too! No use calling her. She'll stay there till her line is done and then go on to ours!"
"Mary," teased a young fellow resting under a tree, "did you hear that? Is it true you can beat us working on the farm?"
"On the farm and anywhere!" came the decided answer.
"She's right," interrupted a young woman. "You've never done a day's work equal to hers."
"No use teasing her, lad," broke in Mr. Mazzarello, going out to join his daughter in the field. "Ever since she was just a tiny thing of a girl, she has never given in to anybody. Her mother and I know too well!"
But as Mary bent back to her work and the perspiration trickled freely down her cheeks, her thoughts were far from boasting, even far from the friends that called out to her from the shade. Her eyes were fixed on the tiny vines that seemed to look to her hands for assistance in their first moment of life. Those hands, roughened and cut by pebbles and briars, were meant to be helpful hands, to labor for others - hands of tender mercy to comfort and heal, to lift and strengthen. She was eighteen now, and, though most girls at eighteen think only of love and marriage and a warm hearth and children nestling in their arms, such thoughts seemed alien to her mind. Much as she loved her people, their priceless heritage of Faith and simplicity, much as she admired the sincere and well-intentioned approaches of the young men of Mornese whom her mother made her find every opportunity to meet, she could not think of herself as a housewife. She felt there was another call for her, other tasks than a housewife's reserved for her. What it might be, who could tell?
Father Pestarino, the pastor of Mornese, who had guided her in her spiritual life ever since her First Communion, would tell her in good time when prayer and meditation had revealed God's will to him. Till then, she would labor, as peasant among her people, yet not entirely one of them..."
read the rest here
More about St Mary:
Fragility in the life of St Mary Mazzarello
The Salesian Sisters have produced a film with English dubbing.