ST MARIA CROCIFISSA DI ROSA, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS - 15 DECEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 15th of December

WELCOME!

SAINT MARIA CROCIFISSA DI ROSA, VIRGIN AND FOUNDRESS

Paola Francesca Di Rosa was born on November 6, 1813 in Brescia as one of nine children born to Clemente Di Rosa and Countess Camilla Albani. She was educated by the Visitation Sisters in their convent in Brescia. After her mother died in 1824, she began working in her father's large spinning mill in Acquafredda where she took an instant notice of the working conditions; she became the manager when she turned nineteen. She began caring for the female workers and devoted herself to looking after their material and spiritual needs which was something that her father encouraged her to do. Her father began searching for suitors to have her married, but she turned each of them down. Di Rosa was upset that her father did this and confessed her disappointment to the priest Faustino Pinzoni who then spoke to her father to tell him that his daughter had another vocation in mind.[3] Di Rosa lived at home for the next decade increasing her involvement in various forms of social work.

Brescia suffered from a cholera epidemic in 1836, during which Paola tended to the sick. In 1840 she began gathering a small group of women that would later evolve into her future religious congregation. Her Order became known as the Ancelle della carità and she later took her religious name and was vested in the habit after undergoing her formation and making her profession in 1852. Paola directed her order to caring for the poor as well the sick since those were the main focus of her religious apostolate. Her Order received papal approval from Pope Pius IX in 1850. After a period of illness, Paola died a holy death in 1855. She was beatified in 1940 and canonised in 1954.

Further reading: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Crocifissa_di_Rosa

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Maria Crocifissa di Rosa may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.