Anna Rosa Gattorno

Anna Rosa Gattorno

Anna Rosa Gattorno (born October 14, 1831 in Genoa as Rosa Maria Benedikta Gattorno , † May 6, 1900 in Rome ) was an Italian nun and mystic . She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000 .

biography

She was the second of six children in a wealthy Genoese family. Her father Francesco Gattorno owned a grain trade, her mother Adelaide Campanella was a sister of the Freemason Federico Campanella, a follower of Giuseppe Mazzini . Her brother Federico, the uncle of Anna Rosa Gattorno, was also a follower of Mazzini, he served as a colonel on Garibaldi's staff . On the day of her birth she was baptized in the Church of San Donato and given the baptismal names Rosa, Maria and Benedikta. She grew up in an unbroken Catholic tradition. As was the custom with wealthy families at the time, she received home schooling. At the age of twelve, she was from Cardinal Tadini , the time of its archbishop of Genoa, received Confirmation .

At the age of 21, on November 5, 1852, on the advice of her family and her confessor, she married a third cousin, Girolamo Custo, and the young couple moved to Marseille for business reasons, where their eldest daughter Charlotte was born. However, Custo was not successful in business and the family returned to Genoa economically impoverished. The two sons Alexander and Francesco were born there. Girolamo Custo tried his luck again abroad, but returned seriously ill. He died on March 9, 1858, leaving his 25-year-old wife with three young children as a widow. Francesco, the youngest of her three children, also died in June 1858. The quick succession of so many sad events led to a fundamental turning point in her life, which she later described as a "conversion" to complete surrender to the Lord , with which she wanted to open herself completely to love for him and for her neighbor. She felt purified by these tests, believed to understand the meaning of her suffering and felt encouraged to follow her actual calling.

Under the supervision of her confessor Giuseppe Firpo, Rosa Gattorno did good works and worked in the hospitals of Genoa without neglecting her children . From 1855 she received Holy Communion every day , which was by no means common at that time. She entered the Third Order of the Franciscan Sisters and took several vows, including a strict fast with bread and water. Shortly after her husband's death in 1858, she also took vows of chastity and obedience, first annually, then forever, and added the vow of poverty in 1861.

In February 1864 she became head of the “Pious Union of the New Ursulines, Daughters of Saints” founded by Paolo Frassinetti. Maria Immakulata ”and, at the request of the Archbishop of Genoa, the revision of the rule for this Congregation. After completing this task, she learned in visions that she should found her own community with its own rules. She resisted it out of concern for her children, but was welcomed by her spiritual companions, the archbishop and also by Pope Pius IX. who received them for an audience, encouraged them. So she gave up her work in Genoa and founded a new religious order with five companions in Piacenza on March 13, 1866 , whose name was initially “Daughters of Maria Immakulata, Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi ”read. Due to the influence of the Lazarist father Giovanni Battista Tornatore, Anna Rosa renamed the congregation she founded to "Daughters of St. Anne", as it is still called today. On April 8, 1870, she took perpetual vows with twelve sisters .

Anna Rosa and her sisters set up various social institutions: for the poor and the sick with different ailments, for single people, for the elderly and abandoned, for children and the disabled, for young people and especially for girls, whom they receive a suitable education and then for integration into working life. Elementary schools for children from poor families were added later. In Piacenza, Gattorno also worked with Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini , who had also been beatified in the meantime , especially on the work for the deaf and mute founded by the bishop.

Anna Rosa Gattorno continued her work until February 1900 when she fell ill with severe flu. She went to the general house of her congregation in Rome, where she died on May 6, 1900 at around 9:00 a.m.

effect

At her death, 368 houses belonged to her congregation, in which 3500 sisters worked. In 1932 her remains were exhumed and found undecayed. She was buried in the Generalate House of the Sisters' Congregation in Rome, which she founded.

On April 9, 2000, she was beatified by Pope John Paul II.

Web links

• Anna Rosa Gattorno (1831-1900). Biography on the pages of the Vatican. April 9, 2000, accessed August 13, 2014 .