Saint Who?
Saints Who Grew Up in Poverty
Saint Clelia Barbieri
Foundress († 1870)Feast: July 13
Clelia Barbieri lived in late-19th-century Italy. Her parents were very poor, and when Clelia’s father died, eight-year-old Clelia had to go to work. She helped her mother to support the family, including two sisters and an aging grandfather. The little girl developed a spirit of contemplative prayer. She loved to read and study. As a teen she became a very effective grammar-school teacher. Even adults attended her catechism classes.
She had several offers of marriage but declined them, a courageous step for one who had no wealth. Instead, she asked God to send her a spiritual friend to help her begin a religious community. Together with Theodora Beraldi she founded the Sisters Minims of Our Lady of Sorrows. They eliminated the typical requirement of a dowry because Clelia wanted it to be easy for poor young women to enter.
Clelia died at twenty-three, and is considered the youngest founder of a religious order. “Be brave,” she told her sisters before she died, “because I am going to paradise; but I shall always remain with you, too; I shall never abandon you!” A year after her death, her voice was heard singing in prayer with her community, and in the century and a half since, her sisters have continued at different times to experience this miracle.
Beloved Father, grant hope and strength
to those who suffer poverty and sickness.
