– [cont.]   A letter on March 28, 1877, from Father Hecker gave Mother Maddalena much encouragement as she strove to found the Poor Clare life in America:
God will not fail to bestow this grace on certain elect souls in our day, and precisely among us. It is the only counterweight that can keep this headlong activity of our generation from ending in irreligion and its own entire destruction.  I trust that the trials, the mortification and disappointments which you have received since your arrival here, have served to deepen the conviction in your souls of the high vocation to which you have been called, and like that of your Holy Foundress, your names will be held in benediction in common with hers in the future of the Church in our beloved Country.