Blessed Maria Gabriella
Today we honor Blessed Maria Gabriella, an Italian Trappist nun, who died at the age young age of 25, and was renowned for her gift to heal divisions and unify the Church through her redemptive sufferings. She is the patron saint of bodily ills Sr. Maria Gabriella was beatified on January 25th, 1983 in the Basilica of St. Paul's outside the Walls. It was the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle of the Gentiles, and also the last day of the Church Unity Octave. In his homily, Pope John Paul II stated: "I am happy to note, and to point out particularly to the young who are so fond of athletics and sport, that the young Trappist whom we are honoring today for the first time with the title "Blessed", was able to make her own the Apostles exhortation to the faithful of Corinth (1 Cor. 9:25), to "run as to win". She succeeded in the span of a few years to set a number of records in the stadium of sanctity that would make the most qualified champio...