Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta

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n the minutes for the process in the And I immediately got up and left my I canonization of Blessed Maria bed and went to the window. I felt as if Assunta, we come upon the testimony of I were reborn!! a woman healed through her intercession. The following day, I rose and, to the “For eight months I was bedridden with amazement of many, went out into the paralysis… I prayed to many of the saints village. The next day I even managed for help despite my particular devotion to go to the country and visit my little to the , Maria Assunta cottage some two kilometers away. From Pallotta. that day, I walk with such ease and One evening, I can’t recall exactly comfort that it caused even our Pastor when, but sometime in May or June of to remark. The attending physician, 1923 at around eight o’clock, I was Dr. Guerriero Consorti, had left Force to upright in bed and I heard a knock at the assume the administration of the hospital door of my room. Thinking it was a at Ancona.” member of the household, I said: “Come Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta was in, who is it?” I heard a voice reply, “It’s born in Force (near Ascoli Piceno) on me, Leone.” And as the door swung August 20, 1878, the first of five children. open, I saw the figure of Sister Maria Due to the family’s poverty, she was Assunta Pallotta in her white monastic unable to pursue any regular studies, habit, wearing a crown of white flowers. she went to work. Her vocation to the The Servant of God began to speak: religious life manifested itself at an early The winter of 1905 was one of the “How are you feeling, Leone?” I replied: age. On May 4, 1898, she left to become a severest and a violent epidemic of “Not well. I’ve been confined to this bed postulant with the Franciscan Missionaries Typhus which broke out in Shansi now for many months.” The Servant of of Mary. Province claimed Maria Assunta. On the God simply replied: “Try to get up!” and On July 9, 1900, seven Sisters of the evening of April 7, she received I said, “I can’t!” – She repeated: “Try, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary were and just twenty minutes before her death because God has granted you this grace. martyred in China, Shansi Province, a mysterious perfumed scent filled the You do, however, have a bad habit – you during the Boxer Rebellion. Maria then room. This perfume could also be sensed curse too often!” And I began to make requested to be sent as a missionary to on every road of the funeral procession excuses by explaining that it was just a China, willing to give her life for Christ and in the very rooms in which she habit. She simply advised: “You must and the Faith. had occupied. On November 7, 1954, change!” (In fact, I’ve indeed tried to Her request was granted and Maria Assunta, called “the Saint of the change.) When she had finished speaking Maria Assunta arrived in China in the perfumes” by the Chinese was beatified to me, she closed the door and withdrew. following year. by Pope Pius XII. © Associazione Carlo Acutis