Adelaide Coari

Adelaide Coari (4 November 1881 – 16 February 1966) was an Italian teacher, trade unionist and Roman Catholic social activist. Born in Milan, Coari became a primary teacher. She helped found the Christian Democratic Women's Group inspired by the thought of Romolo Murri, and became editor of the Catholic Women's League's monthly journal L'Azione muliebre.

Quotes

Relazioni spirituali tra obbedienza e desiderio di autonomia nel percorso di Adelaide Coari (1881-1966) (1913)

Relazioni spirituali tra obbedienza e desiderio di autonomia nel percorso di Adelaide Coari (1881-1966) Coari 1913

• In the confessor I asked for a friend, the soul that loved my soul, that shared I would almost say the nature of my feelings, that participated in my vocation. I was asking conformity to feel ; this seemed to me to be an essential sharing so that he could direct the actions of my spirit, he shouldn't have taken me outside my natural center. It's true, I asked to be able in a certain way to influence the soul of the confessor, to sincerely give him my impressions of my conduct. It seemed to me that our action must in some way be reciprocal. Certainly St. Francis and St. Francesca had this communion of feelings over them.
  • 19 November 1913.

• There is a long story in the soul that I can summarize in these words, friendship had also become love for me. Our souls understood each other, but we perhaps wanted more. DC [Don Carlo] I write before you, you know that you were my great, my friend; God has taken you away and now you remain for me only in Spirit. But I still feel you so close and all permeating my being. You remain for me eternally for what was most priestly in you. You wrote to me that we were too equal I would say for that union that characterizes the relationship between a woman and a man to exist, I wanted to feel strong, generous like you.
  • 20 November 1913.

• But why does St. Francis de Sales want obedience to the guide who is a faithful friend? Isn't it enough that I alone try to place myself in the eternal law? Alone?… My nature seeks help, it seeks it every day in brothers with whom it believes it feels in communion of ideas and affections. And I would be happy – how many times, my God, have I wished to find myself with such a spirit – if I could find in one of the priests I approach, the guiding friend.
  • 24 November 24 1913.

• I wanted to obey my Director, I subjected myself to all the trials; I wanted to help the spirit with mortification of the body, I led an intense life of thought, but I wasn't well; I was always in anguish, after an act of true submission, always the period of rebellion. [...] I was pining, his word weighed on me like the sword of Damocles, for how many years I fought between the idea of ​​submitting or looking for another confessor!
  • 25 November 1913.

• But approaching the thought, not feeling that every initial act should always have come from the authority of the Church, impersonating the authority of the Pope, was a sin . Who knows how much energy I wasted in this intimate fight! [...] I rebelled: I broke away violently, not without deep pain, great anguish. Yet then I obeyed . What is, my God, obedience to the Director?
  • 25 November 1913.

• The first condition, however, is this, to find the director who is a faithful friend. DC [Don Carlo Grugni] I would have obeyed, obeyed with all my soul. Because? Before I spoke, I felt heard by him, the expression of his soul in what lived most generously, they were the desires of my [sic]. We felt united in spirit, in thought of action. What was obedience in me then? If not my greatest and most intimate joy!

• Serve . Our century does not want us to be servants and truly the concept of fraternity and equality does not admit the servant. […] Serving God consists in doing the will of the “Father who is in heaven”. Doing God's will is following his law, which has a fundamentally unique voice for all individuals