Maria Bolognesi was born on 21 October 1924 at Bosaro, in the province of Rovigo, the illegitimate daughter of Amedeo Gozzati and Giuseppa Samiolo. She first bore her mother's name; the surname Bolognesi came later from her stepfather Giuseppe, whom her mother married. Extreme poverty shaped her earliest years. She went at once to work in the fields and would remain an agricultural laborer for twenty-six years. She attended only the first two years of elementary school and could not pass into the third—not for lack of intelligence, but because of the need to work and because of undernourishment. Her maternal grandmother, Cesira Cornetto, planted in her a simple and true faith, love for Jesus, for neighbor, and for creation.
Family life was harsh. The stepfather mistreated his wife out of jealous fear; the mother, nervous and given to blasphemy, in turn struck the children. Maria was sent away for a time to the rectory of Don Sante Magro to do domestic work. Thus began a weary pilgrimage of constant changes of residence, always accompanied by heavy labor. From childhood she consecrated herself totally to the Lord and to the Madonna. In the house she became the support of both the old and the young; in the countryside she hoed, harvested wheat and beets, gathered wood, worked hemp, and sometimes fished. She learned to sew clothes, slippers, and little shoes, and for herself she made a special garment that was not worldly. She did not disdain even small masonry tasks.
In early 1932 she suffered a high fever while her mother lay dying of meningitis. Preparing for First Communion, Maria was told by the instructing sister that Jesus would grant a wish; she asked for her mother's recovery. The mother was restored, and Maria made her First Communion with deep emotion on 22 May 1932. In the summer of 1940–1941 she endured what were regarded as diabolical assaults: she could not enter a church, and priestly blessings seemed without effect. Taken for evaluation to a mental hospital, she was found free of psychological disorder; the Bishop of Rovigo, Guido Maria Mazzocco, blessed her beforehand from the window of his residence.
On the evening of Holy Thursday, 1 April 1942, she received her first vision of Jesus Christ. The Lord assured her that she would learn to read and bestowed a ruby ring as a sign of the stigmata. From that time her mystical life unfolded under the guidance of spiritual directors, beginning with Father Bassiano Paiato, who counseled her to keep a spiritual diary. In April 1942, with his permission, she began to wear a black habit and was ridiculed for her piety. By January 1944 she was living in the house of a Mrs. Piva. In another vision Christ granted her the gift of sweating blood, which occurred every Friday at three o'clock. She was invited to share in his Passion; until death she suffered unexplained blood losses which she offered for the poorest souls, and she continued to face demonic attacks. From 1943, for some hours each day, she gathered the children of poor families so that their parents could go to work. Her many mystical charisms never hindered her from spending herself in charity, above all toward children, for whom she became factotum, cobbler, seamstress, carpenter, and even beggar. She made frequent visits to the sick and kept night watches in hospitals; she collected money and basic necessities for destitute families. In later years she collaborated with the work of Don Olinto Marella for orphans and children of misery, and she welcomed all who sought counsel and intercession.
Trials multiplied. In March 1948 three criminals attacked her, left her unconscious and injured in the snow; skepticism led to a false accusation that she had invented the assault, of which she was later cleared. Through the 1940s she suffered arthritis, colitis, and appendicitis, and nearly lost her sight around 1950. She moved to Rovigo, sought treatment in Padua, and received successive spiritual directors: Rodolfo Barbieri from 1951, Mgr. Adelino Marenga from 1956, and after Marenga's death in 1964, Aldo Balduin. In July 1951 she suffered the pain of the Lord's flagellation. In 1954–1955 she stayed with Augustinian nuns in Ferrara, was hospitalized, and on a journey that included San Giovanni Rotondo and a retreat at Sperlinga she experienced fever, shoes full of blood, and a vision of Christ on Good Friday, 8 April 1955. Bedridden from spring 1958 into 1959, she later suffered a heart attack in 1971 as her health declined.
She never enjoyed the comforts of well-being, endured a long catalogue of illnesses, and faced fearful diabolical temptations, yet she never gave in. Her whole life was a constant and marvelous exercise of meeting pain and the Passion with a serene heart and love, offering herself for others while forgetting herself. Sharing in the sufferings of Christ filled her heart with a love and consolation that only divine grace can pour out. She died of a heart attack at Rovigo on 30 January 1980 at about two o'clock in the morning. Her remains rest in the parish church of Bosaro, where her tomb has become a place of veneration. Declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 and beatified at Rovigo on 7 September 2013 by Cardinal Angelo Amato in the name of Pope Francis, she is held up to the faithful as a silent witness of the Gospel in discretion, joy, charity, daily labor, and fidelity.
Imitate today her quiet charity that forgets self and offers every trial in union with Christ.
Fonte: Causes of Saints Anche elencato Wikidata Cause dei Santi GCatholic