Elizabeth Barbara Williams was born to a large Catholic family in Baton Rouge. Though she felt called to religious life, there were at the time few options available for an African American woman in the South. For some years she worked as a receptionist for a convent of white nuns. Then, in 1916, she was approached by a French priest, Fr. Ignatius Lissner, who was serving the black Catholic community in Savannah. At the time, laws were under consideration that would prevent white teachers, like the sisters in Lissner’s parish school, from teaching black children. In response, Fr. Lissner wished to start a congregation of black sisters. In Williams, he found an enthusiastic partner. As Mother Theodore, Williams became the founder of the Handmaid of the Most Pure Heart of Mary.
When she proposed laws were not passed, the Handmaid found themselves struggling to find their mission. Though they were largely accepted in the community, they confronted doubts from certain white nuns. As Fr. Lissner noted, “As real Southerners they could not believe a colored woman could make a real Religious Sister…’It is a shame,’ they said. ‘Fr. Lissner may give them the veil, but what will that prevent them from stealing chickens and telling lies?”
Then, in 1923, Archbishop Patrick Hayes invited the Handmaids and relocate to Harlem. There, besides teaching, they operated soup kitchen, a kindergarten, and a shelter for homeless children. In 1929, Williams affiliated her community with the Franciscans. She died in July 14, 1931.
Francis Solano was born in the Andalusian town of Montilla, where he joined the Franciscans in 1569. While ministering in southern Spain, he cared for the victims of plague, a most perilous undertaking. At one point, he himself nearly died of the disease. Though he wished to be assigned to Africa, in 1589 Francis was sent to Peru. Along the way, a fierce storm drove his ship onto a sandbar close to shore. While the rest of the crew abandoned shop, leaving behind a cargo of African slaves, Francis chose to remain behind. Three days later, when the weather cleared, the survivors were rescued.
For his achievements over the next twenty years, Francis became known as the “Wonderworker of the New World.” Venturing into the remote region of Tucaman, in present day Argentina and Paraguay, he went out to meet the Indians, announcing his arrival with the sound of his violin. He was gifted in learning the indigenous languages – so much so that he was reputed to have a “gift of tongues.” But though his gentleness won the Indians’ affection, his efforts to protect them from Spanish exploitation had only mixed results.
Later he was assigned to Lima. There, his preaching against corruption and injustice caused such an uproar that his superiors pleaded with him to moderate his speech. He died on July 14, 1610, having uttered his last words: “Glory be to God.” He was canonized in 1726.
Clelia Barbieri was born in 1847 to a poor family on the outskirts of Bologna. After her father’s death, when she was eight, she went to work spinning hemp. Despite her own modest circumstances, Clelia sought every opportunity to serve her neighbors. She became well known in her parish for teaching catechism and encouraging other young girls in their faith. During this time, she conceived the idea of gathering a household of other young women who would devote themselves to prayer and good works. With support from their parish priest, they took over an abandoned house and implemented this vision. Neighbors arrived the first night with donations of food. Clelia remarked, “I like the idea that our house resembles the crib where the shepherds bring their gifts.”
Clelia and her companions endured poverty and hardship. In time, the Minims of Our lady of Sorrows, under the patronage of St. Francis of Paola. Clelia devised a rule that emphasized community, the spirit of contemplation, the practice of charity, simplicity, and joy. But her years were limited. She succumbed to tuberculosis at twenty-three, dying on July 13, 1870. She was canonized in 1989.
St. Birgitta of Sweden was one of the great women of the fourteenth century: the wife of a nobleman and the mother of eight children; a nun and founder of monasteries as well as a religious order; a pilgrim who crossed continents and seas; a mystic who filled many volumes with accounts of her visions and colloquies with Christ; and a prophet who called kings to justice and popes to live up to their sacred duties.
She experienced her first vision as a child, when she saw an altar, and seated above it a woman who said, “Come, Birgitta,” and offered her a crown. Some years later she had another vision of Christ hanging on the cross. When she asked him who had treated him this way, he answered, “They who despise me and spurn my love for them.” From that point, she felt herself mystically united with Christ and determined to serve him in every way.
At fourteen, she married a prince named Ulf. It was a happy marriage that lasted twenty-eight years. Whenever she could, she would visit the hospitals, binding the wounds of the patients with her own hands. She often brought along her young children, desiring that they learn “at an early age to serve God and his poor and sick.” Eventually, fed up with the frivolity of court life, both she and Ulf embarked on a long pilgrimage that took them all the way to Compostela in Spain. On the return trip, Ulf died, and Birgitta sought consolation in becoming a member of the Third Order of St. Francis.
Before long, she received another vision, this time instructing her to found a monastery in Sweden. After she had accomplished this, she went on yet another pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where she again received many visions of the events of Christ’s life, before finally settling in Rome for the last twenty years of her life. Wherever she traveled, she spoke out against slavery, injustice, and threats to peace. Confronting the corruption she encountered in the Eternal City, she cried out, “O Rome, Rome, be converted and turn to the Lord thy God.” She excoriated the pope for abandoning Rome for Avignon, and at one point even denounced him as “a murderer of souls, worse than Lucifer, more unjust than Pilate, more merciless than Judas.” Despite her frankness, he approved the rule of her new order, the Birgittines.
St. Birgitta died on July 12, 1373. A triumphal procession, led by her daughter, accompanied her body across Europe and back to her abbey in Vadstena, where she was laid to rest.
For years, Eve Lavalliere was the toast of Parisian society, a famous beauty and the most popular actress on the French stage. While performing for royalty across Europe, she enjoyed the favors of numerous lovers. “I had everything the world could offer,” she noted, everything I could desire. Nevertheless, I regarded myself as the unhappiest of souls.” Unhappiness ran deep in life. Her abominable childhood had ended the day her father, in a drunken rage, shot her mother and then killed himself. Her later fame and wealth could not fill the void.
And yet Eve’s life took a dramatic turn 1917 when a priest gave her a biography of Mary Magdalen and challenged her to read it. At first defiantly, and then with tears of remorse, she read the book, and when she had finished she resolved to make her peace with God.
“My resolution is made. From now on, only Jesus has a right to my life, for He alone gave me happiness and peace.”
Abandoning her glittering life, Eve first sought to enter religious life, but she was rejected by a number of convents on account of her notoriety. Instead, she became a Third Order Franciscan. For several years, until ill health overtook her, she volunteered with a lay-missionary nursing order in Tunisia. She spent her last year alone, penniless, and in great suffering. Yet she insisted she was the “happiest person in the world.” In her notebook she wrote,
“I thank You, O my God, that You have given me shelter beneath your roof. Abandonment, love, trust – such is my motto.”
Ursula Giuliani was born in the small Italian town of Mercatello. At the age of seventeen, after receiving a vision of the Blessed Mother, she entered the Capuchin convent of Citta di Castello in Umbria, and took the name Veronica. Early in her religious life, she began to experience an extraordinary identification with the Passion of Christ. In 1694, she displayed on her forehead the imprint of the crown of thorns. In one vision, she saw the crucified Christ remove his arm from the cross and beckon to embrace her by his side. As she felt an arrow pierce her heart and received on her body the wounds of the crucifixion, she wrote,
“I felt great pain but in the same pain I saw myself, I felt myself, totally transformed into God.”
Veronica’s physical wounds were examined and treated by medical professionals, with no effect. After a personal examination by the bishop, he ordered that her hands be covered in gloves and sealed with his personal seal. She was to be deprived of the Eucharist, kept away from the other nuns, and subjected to constant supervision. But when her signs nevertheless continued, she was allowed to resume her regular life.
Despite her extraordinary mystical gifts, there was nothing unbalanced about Veronica’s religious life. She served for thirty years as novice mistress and spent her last ten years as abbess of her convent. She died on July 9, 1727, and was canonized in 1839.
