Day 174 -- Blessed Maria Adeodata Pisani

Today I am writing about another Italian blessed. Blessed Maria Adeodata Pisani was born on December 29, 1806 in Naples, Italy (where my family is from!). Adeodata was born to a rich and noble family, but she renounced her wealth and title when she made her final vows at age 21 as a cloistered Benedictine nun. Her father was an alcoholic and Adeodata was raised by her grandmother. Her father joined in a revolt and was exiled to Malta in 1821. Adeodata and her mother joined him in 1825. As a Benedictine nun, Sister Adeodata worked as a seamstress, sacristan, porter, teacher, and novice mistress. She was also the abbess from 1851 to 1853, but her ill health forced her to leave this service early. She had a great love for the poor and had been seen to levitate. She died from heart problems on February 25, 1855 in the monastery in Malta. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 9, 2001. The miracle for her beatification occurred on November 24, 1897 when Abbess Giuseppina Damiani from the monastery of Saint John the Baptist Subiaco, Italy was suddenly healed of a stomach tumor following the intercession of Maria Adeodata Pisani. The Cause was delayed for many years due to lack of funds and political problems between Malta and Italy.


Words of Pope John Paul II at her beatification Mass:
"Sister Adeodata’s holy example certainly helped to promote the renewal of religious life in her own monastery. I therefore wish to commend to her intercession a special intention of my heart. Much has been done in recent times to adapt religious life to the changed circumstances of today, and the benefit of this can be seen in the lives of very many men and women religious. But there is need for a renewed appreciation of the deeper theological reasons for this special form of consecration. We still await a full flowering of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the transcendent value of that special love of God and others which leads to the vowed life of poverty, chastity and obedience. I commend to all consecrated men and women the example of personal maturity and responsibility which was wonderfully evident in the life of Blessed Adeodata."