Carmelina Negri was born in Melegnano, Italy on the 9th May 1910, the last born child of Gaetano Negri and Teresa Galbiati whose family already numbered five children.
Carmelina joined Catholic Action at a very young age, together with the influence exercised by her family, it was a determining factor for her growth in the life of faith, in the spirit of prayer, in the love of the Eucharist, in the devotion to the heavenly Mother and in the generous service to the Church.
After completing her studies and having found employment in a bank, where she met her future husband Giuseppe Carabelli, a young, shy and modest man, and also a member of Catholic Action. The two young people get married on the 29th January 1935. Moved by the desire to give birth to a large family, the maternities followed one upon the other in the following years. In all, she had eleven children, nine of whom are still living.
In September 1950 she went to San Giovanni Rotondo where she met with Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, the stigmatized Capuchin. She returned from that trip, which she defined as “memorable”, with a much greater love for prayer and an increased desire for doing good.
Having been widowed in 1959, her husband Giuseppe Carabelli passing away on the 27th March, mamma Carmela intensified even further her parish commitments where for many years she animated the “Passio” group, a group of willing people who commit themselves to visit the sick, to comfort them and bring a word of Christian hope.
In her home, she took up the practice of gathering together, one evening a week, her children, some of whom were already grown up and married, and other family friends to pray the Rosary and to meditate on some page of the Gospel with the help of a priest.
On the night of March 14, 1968, mamma Carmela felt in her heart a sort of call. Getting up, she picked up a notebook and a pencil and started to write. She wrote for an hour. Then she went back to bed and fell asleep. The morning after, reading again what was written, she found that they were “things very beautiful and true.” From then on, for more than ten years, she wrote daily, filling up thousands of notebook pages, where with her own plain and expressive style, within reach of the most simple, occur the “appeals” of the merciful Jesus, of most Holy Mary and the Saints.
So, in the heart of Milan, a house like many others became a new “cenacle”, a little oasis of peace and love.
To the daily participation at the Eucharist, to the recitation of the Rosary in the family, to personal prayer — by day, but especially by night —, to the household chores, to the daily and concrete interest for the children still in the family and for those already married, to the discreet help to people in a state of need, poor and suffering, so were added for mamma Carmela numerous initiatives of the apostolate. The welcoming of groups who arrived from everywhere to meet and pray, the private talks with people desirous for a word of comfort, the dozens of daily telephone calls, the piles of correspondence: all were confronted with a spirit of abnegation, generosity, and enthusiasm.
There is more than one element that seems to unite the apostolate that mamma Carmela was carrying out to the mission that had been Sister Faustina’s, the Polish nun canonized in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. It was a mutual spirituality that animated them — exactly that of Therese of Lisieux and her “little way” — as it was mutual the insistent call to the trustful abandonment to the mercy of God.
Inspired by Jesus, mamma Carmela wrote: “I call you to tell you how great is my mercy. I desire to make you a gift of the love that flares up in my heart. I call you also to be merciful and good. Do not be a strict judge of either one or the other, but in pity, in understanding and in that charity that makes you brothers learn to edify each other in turn.”
And, on another occasion: “Thanks for the dissemination of my Holy Face. I will bless those families in which my image is displayed. I will convert the sinners that live there, I will help the good to perfect themselves, the lukewarm to become more fervent. I will see to their needs and I will help them in all their spiritual and material needs. Turn to Me often, invoking Me thus:
And again, on the vigil of Low Sunday (Divine Mercy Sunday) of 1969: “My daughter, in the immensity of my love and my mercy, I promise you that whoever celebrates with a special solemnity the feast of my merciful Love with a true intent of love, will be received in my heart with a special tenderness. I will reveal to him my secrets, I will speak to his heart and I will consider him as a confidant and friend.”
In the following years, from the “cenacle” of Viale Lunigiana, a thick network of prayer groups branched off, which, sharing the same spirituality of Mercy and a solid Marian orientation (Ad Jesum per Mariam), soon crossed the borders of Italy and Europe to reach the other continents.
Tried in health, mamma Carmela was admitted to the Fatebenefratelli Hospital of Milan on the 22nd October 1978. Here, after having received Holy Viaticum and the Sacrament of the Sick, she expired on the 25th November 1978 surrounded by her family and members of the small female community, which in August of that same year she founded.
