Blessed Maria Assunta Pallotta – September 7th
Maria Assunta was a young Italian country girl who spent her days as a teen doing farm chores and helping in the fields. Every one of the young men and women around the countryside knew that they could not use any rough or immodest words when she was around-there was something so pure about her that no one would have dared.
Maria entered the Congregation of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. In her humility she felt so much less worthy than her Sisters that she always chose the less pleasing chores for herself. Joyfully and with a smile ever on her lips, she would “work for Jesus,” as she said. “I want to take advantage of every chance I get to work for sanctity.”
Sister Mary Assunta was sent as a missionary to China. A fierce storm arose on this trip, and the ship seemed about to sink. “Aren’t you afraid, too?” one of the passengers asked the calm-looking Sister. “No,” answered Blessed Maria Assunta. “There’s no reason why I should be. It’s all the same to me whether I reach my mission or go to the bottom of the ocean, if that’s what Jesus wants.”
Blessed Maria was stationed at the same spot where seven Sisters of her Congregation had been killed four years before. So she hoped to be able to give her life for Our Lord, too, but in the meantime, she worked hard, cooking for the Sisters and the orphans they cared for. When typhoid fever struck that region, she lovingly nursed her Sisters, without a thought of the danger to herself. One year after she had come to China, Blessed Maria Assunta caught typhoid, too, and died of it. At her death, a mysterious, sweet perfume filled her room and followed her body as it was carried to the cemetery. Even the pagans came to her grave to pray to her and ask her protection.
Let us pray to receive the strength we need to overcame ourselves and give our best to duties we do not like.
