St. Agostina Pietrantoni

Livia Pietrantoni was born March 27, 1864 to a poor family of farmers in Italy. At a young age, she did manual labor for road construction and harvested olives. In 1886 she travelled to Rome with an uncle who was a priest in hopes of joining a religious order. Her first inquiry with the Sisters of Divine Charity was declined, but she was later accepted. Upon joining the congregation, she adopted the name Agostina.

As a sister, she worked as a nurse in the Santo Spirito Hospital. She worked on the tuberculosis ward, ultimately contracted the disease herself. She recovered and continued to work with the tuberculosis patients. On one occasion, she confiscated a knife from a patient named Giuseppe Romanelli, who in turn attacked and beat her. She reassured her sisters that she could continue to work. When his mother would visit him, Sister Agostina made a point of welcoming her.

Romanelli was eventually expelled from the hospital for harassing the women who worked in the hospital laundry. After being expelled, he continued to harass Sister Agostina. He sent her obscenities and death threats. On Nov. 12, 1894 her sisters, worried for safety, requested she take time off, but Sister Agostina refused to quit and continued her work. Romanelli entered the hospital and attacked her the next morning, stabbing her to death. As she lay dying of her wounds, she forgave her killer.

St. Agostina Pietrantoni is a patron saint for nurses, abuse victims, and against poverty. Her feast day is Nov. 13.

Monday Motivation: Change the World

"What we would like to do is change the world—make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute—the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words—we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.” ― Dorothy Day

Pilgrims of Hope

The magi are fascinating figures; gentiles, seeing signs in the sky, who travel a long way to worship a poor baby. They are mysterious—in their origin and knowledge. They bring gifts that don’t make sense at first. They are given directions by Herod, which they don’t heed, leaving them to escape away by another path, mysteriously.

Epiphany reminds us that from His birth, some recognized the greatness, the divinity, of Jesus. They had sudden revelation—be it from angels in the field or stars in the sky. They saw the truth and heeded the signs.

As the Church celebrated the Jubilee Year with the theme “pilgrims of hope,” the magi represent pilgrimage well. They have heard a call, and they travel great distance in order to find God. The magi recognized Herod’s evil motives and rejected them. Similarly, we must spurn evil and remain focused on our journey. The magi’s pilgrimage must have seemed foolish to some—vague information, long and expensive travel, entering a land and culture different from one’s own. Yet the magi were filled with hope and purpose. They trusted that they were being led to something magnificent.