INTRODUCTION
(To see a powerpoint presentation click:Canossian Laity Through The Years)

One of the prophetic intuitions of our Foundress, Saint Magdalene of Canossa, has been: to involve the Laity in the

Magdalene had adopted a very specific system in order to use, in the best possible way, the means she had at hand, especially the existing human resources. Her strategy was to place the Sisters in very populated urban centres, places which today are very central, but, at the time of the Foundress were at the periphery of the city. The social strata of the land owners, was, somewhat, the link between the city and the villages. The organization of the Ministries of Charity, at that time, demanded that the Communities had at least seven Members. To open Communities in the villages where the population was much less, would have been a waste of energies.

 To be of help to the people of the rural areas as well, Magdalene thought of “the county side Teachers” prepared through residential Seminars.

There is an affinity between the Country side Teachers and the external Tertiaries and a link with the internal Tertiaries.

To simplify, the first were prepared to carry out the same Ministries of Charity as the Sisters, in places where the  Sisters could not reach. The others, instead, had to respond to the needs of the local church and the needs of the territory, but not necessarily linked with the work of the Daughters of Charity.

There is another similarity between the County teachers and the external Tertiaries: they lived in their own families, while the internal Tertiaries lived, a somewhat, Community life.

On the other hand, the ‘Interns’ as well as the Country Teachers were called, in the mind of the Foundress, to a life of chastity, while the ‘Externs’ could also be married women  or widows.

This synthesis underlines some basic points necessary to introduce the topic. At the same time, it has the risk to limit the horizon and to impoverish the content.

However, by analysing the Plans prepared by the Foundress, in collaboration with Cristina Pilotti, and studying the developments that took place during almost two hundred years, one can see the whole project in its complexity and richness.

To have a complete profile or description of the  various groups of lay people who share in the charism of St. Magdalene today; it is, however, necessary, to spread further the horizon to embrace all the persons that frequent our houses, friends and collaborators, people who appreciate our apostolate or work with us, bound to us in one form or others by formal promise. 

THE CANOSSIAN LAITY THROUGH THE YEARS 

The Canossian Laity: Its Beginnings

Magdalene, urged by the needs of the places where her Daughters cannot reach, looks for collaboration among  the girls of the middle-classes, among the ladies of the cities, among young women more open to the apostolate, among friends and benefactors.

To them she shares the charism she has received. For them she holds formation courses, retreats, invents particular ways of life for single persons or for groups with the aim of transforming these persons into ardent apostles.

Magdalene, in her creativity and motivated by her one and only constant aim of spreading as much as possible and by every means, the divine glory, brought to realisation: The Promotion of the Laity at the Beginning of the Institute

They are lay vocations to the apostolate arising among the young girls who frequent the Institute or among the country Teachers trained in it.  They are young girls who distinguish themselves because of sound judgement and piety and  who are “genuinely desirous of leading a truly Christian life”.

Magdalene entrusts these lay apostles to Our Lady of Sorrows whose devotion they have to spread and who remains their model in the practice of virtue, particularly of patience, docility, meekness and gentleness.

Magdalene  wants the Tertiaries to “be rooted and in love with true virtue”.

The external Tertiaries are united to the Institute by a reciprocal bond of love. They find in the Daughters comfort and spiritual assistance and the Daughters find in them “persons who take care, replace them and do whatever work whenever and wherever they are impeded by obligations of their state”.

1818: First draft of the Plan for the Tertiaries

1835: elaboration the definitive text of the Plan for the Tertiaries of the Institute of the Daughters of Charity.

In 1936 the Superior General, M. Antoinetta Monzoni, entrusts to M. Grillo the groups of Canossian Collaborators :  mothers, brides, former students, young people, sympathizers who associate with the Collaborators.

1943 - Bergamo - the Association of the Canossian Collaborators begins, constituted in the beginning by Camilla Galbusera, Maria Ambrosioni and Ida Zanolini: named secular general Delegate of the Canossian Collaborators.

In 1950 the Holy See approves the Statutes of the Association of the Canossian Collaborators and in 1953 the Manual is printed for the Associates.   1943-1983: 40^th Anniversary of the Canossian Collaborators The Xth General Chapter of the Canossian Institute in 1978 encourages the development and the renewal of the lay groups.

In 1978, a small “spiritual family”, a work of Ms. Marisa Gini is constituted as the “Secular Missionaries of Magdalene of Canossa.”  The Expansion of the Canossian Laity  in the Story of the Institute.In 1984 a vast Lay Canossian Movement  is born promoted by the XIth General Chapter. Its basic guidelines are published in the Acts: The Promotion of the Laity in the Church and in the Institute Today.1984 –