Blessed Itala Mela ObSB
Laywoman; Mystic
Born	28 August 1904 La Spezia, Kingdom of Italy
Died	29 April 1957(1957-04-29) (aged 52) La Spezia, Italy
Resting place	La Spezia Cathedral, Italy
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	10 June 2017, Piazza Europa, La Spezia, Italy by Cardinal Angelo Amato
Feast	29 April

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Itala Mela (28 August 1904 – 29 April 1957) was an Italian Roman Catholic who was a lapsed Christian until a sudden conversion of faith in the 1920s and as a Benedictine oblate virgin assumed the name of "Maria della Trinità". Mela became one of the well-known mystics of the Church during her life and indeed following her death. She also penned a range of theological writings that focused on the Trinity, which she deemed was integral to the Christian faith.

Mela was proclaimed to be Venerable on 12 June 2014 after Pope Francis approved her life of heroic virtue.^[1] On 14 December 2015 the pope also approved a miracle attributed to her intercession which allowed for her beatification to take place.^[1] Mela was beatified in La Spezia on 10 June 2017 and Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over the celebration on the pope's behalf; the miracle in question concerned the revival of an Italian newborn, whose body was in state of clinical brain death.^[2]

Life

Itala Mela was born on 28 August 1904 in La Spezia to Pasquino Mela and Luigia Bianchini; both were atheist teachers.^[1] She spent her childhood in the care of her maternal grandparents from 1905 to 1915 as her parents worked and her grandparents prepared Mela for her First Communion and Confirmation; she made both on 9 May 1915 and 27 May 1915 respectively.^[3]

The death of her brother Enrico at the age of nine (27 February 1920) challenged Mela's perception of her Christian faith, and she wrote of her feelings to the loss: "After his death, nothing". As a result, she eschewed her Christian faith and slipped into atheism.^[3] However she had a sudden reawakening of her faith on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (8 Dec. 1922) after rediscovering God; her faith deepened with the motto she took being: "Lord, I shall follow You unto the darkness, unto death".^[4]

Mela became a member of FUCI in 1923, where she met future pope Giovanni Battista Montini and Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster at the meetings there; she also met the priests Divo Barsotti and Agostino Gemelli. At such meetings, Montini and both the politicians Aldo Moro and Giulio Andreotti served as major influences upon her. She was the main friend of Angela Gotelli, a teacher of classic letters and a Roman Catholic partisan who was close to the polical ideas of Aldo Moro.^[5][6]

Mela received her high school diploma at the liceo classico Lorenzo Costa of La Spezia (where she later became a teacher) with recognition of being a brilliant student and in 1922 was enrolled at the University of Genoa, where she later received a degree in letters in 1928 as well as in classical studies.^[3]

Mela experienced her first vision of God on 3 August 1928 as a beam of light at the tabernacle in a church of a seminary at Pontremoli, beginning a long stream of visions in her life. She departed for Milan at this time, and chose as her confessor Adriano Bernareggi. Her true calling as a Benedictine oblate came in 1929 and solidified to the point where she commenced her novitiate. It concluded on 4 January 1933 when she made her profession in Rome in the church of San Paolo fuori le Mura making her four vows. As a sign of her new life, Mela assumed the name of "Maria della Trinità". Mela returned to her hometown in 1933. From 1936 she received ecstasies and visions. Her mother died in 1937.

Mela presented an idea for a memorial to Pope Pius XII in 1941, and the pope accepted the Memorial of Mary of the Trinity. In Genoa from 5–15 October 1946, Mela composed a series of spiritual exercises for the benefit of the faithful; the exercises were well received.

From 18 February to 24 April 1957, despite her aphasia, she managed to make herself understood with gestures and with her eyes, her smile and the nod of her head. On 25 April at 4 p.m., after a new attack, she went into a coma for four days and on 29 April at 6.30 p.m., while the bells of the Church of St. John and St. Augustine ring for the Eucharistic blessing, Itala dies. She was clothed in the wedding dress of one of her pupils who had become a Carmelite, a dress that had been worn by her for the day of her vesting. The little chamber in which she passed away was the object of the homage of an innumerable crowd.

Her remains were later transferred to the La Spezia Cathedral's crypta in 1983.

Itala Mela is commemorated on April 28 because 29 April is the feast of St.Catherine of Siena and St. Francis of Assisi, patron saints of Italy, and their liturgical memory would take precedence over that of Itala mela.

Beatification

The beatification process started in La Spezia in its diocese on 29 April 1968 which granted Mela the title Servant of God; the process spanned until 21 November 1976 and was validated in Rome on 2 October 1992. In 1983, at the canonical reconnaissance that are regularly carried out in the case of beatification processes, his body was found intact.^[7] Following the local process, all of Mela's writings were approved in 1979 and permitted for evaluation in the cause.

The Positio then was compiled and submitted in 2003 to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for further evaluation. On the occasion of the 2006 Convention of Italian Churches in Verona, the churches of Liguria chose Itala Mela as an exemplary witness to their heritage of faith and spirituality.

It was on 12 June 2014 that Pope Francis approved that Mela had lived a life of heroic virtue thus declared her to be Venerable.

On 14 December 2015, the pope also approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of Mela which would allow for her beatification to take place; it was celebrated at Piazza Europa in La Spezia on 10 June 2017 with Cardinal Angelo Amato presiding over the celebration on the pope's behalf. The following afternoon after his Angelus address - given on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity - Pope Francis referred to her beatification in which he mentioned the real presence of "God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who abides in the chamber of our heart".^[8]

The current postulator assigned to this cause is Dr. Andrea Ambrosi. Her writings altogether occupy more than 42 volumes.^[9] Her original writings are kept in the Diocesan Archive at the Episcopal Seminary in Sarzana. Itala Mela's findings were typewritten by the nuns of the Monastery of Santa Maria del Mare in Castellazzo. Later, a commission of experts verified the fidelity of the typewritten copies to the originals. The archive preserves both Itala Mela's autograph writings and typewritten copies (which are the only ones that can be consulted by the public).

In honour of the Blessed Itala Mela, Father Claudio Grana OCD composed the Italian hymn titled Se uno mi ama davvero (If one truly loves me).^[10] (n°. 1278^[11]). The strophes are derived from the Elevazione alla Trinità (Elevation to the Trinity) of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity.^[12]

In her honour, the Municipality of La Spezia named a stairway between Via XXVII Marzo and Via dei Colli.

The Trinitarian indwelling

The Trinitarian indwelling is a spiritual experience proposed by Itala Mela to help the faithful live their lives in the light of the Trinity. It consists of trying to do everything in union with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, relying on their guidance and always trying to do God's will.

Trinitarian indwelling is an experience that can be lived in any situation of life, not just in a convent or in a place of prayer. For Itala Mela, in fact, daily life is the place where it is possible to meet God and bear witness to one's faith, through concrete gestures of love and charity towards others.

the Trinitarian indwelling finds foundation in the Gospel according to John, chapter 10, verses from 22 to 39 and in particular in the words "The Father is in me and I in Him". Thus, the three divine Persons inhabit each other. According to Itala Mela, man, created in the image and likeness of God, is made to live the same life as God through the Trinitarian indwelling of the soul and body. It is not a mere intellectual fact, but an experience that concerns the person in his entirety of soul and body. Anyone who coherently lives as a Son of God can also experience this communion of love with God and with his neighbour.

Itala Mela lived its first experiences of trinitarian indwelling after having prayed the Office of the Hours, received the Eucharist during holy mass or having practiced an intense Eucharistic adoration.^[13]

Itala Mela immolated herself, offering her joyful suffering and infirmity to God so that other people could experience the Trinitarian indwelling, for the forgiveness of their sins and their eternal salvation.^[14]

The Trinitarian indwelling theology was also described by Elizabeth of the Trinity. It was anticipated by the Diuturnum illud of Pope Leo XIII and then confirmated by the encyclical Mystici corporis of Pius XII.^[15]