Saint Who?
Saints Who Lost Loved Ones
Blessed Teresa Grillo Michel
Widow and foundress († 1944)Feast: January 25
“I wish I could open my arms further to welcome so many under the wings of divine Providence.” Maddalena Grillo was born in Italy in 1855. At twenty-one, she married the brilliant and cultured Captain Giovanni Michel. When he died of sunstroke after fourteen years of marriage, Teresa was near despair. The couple had no children, and she sank into depression. Her cousin, a Monsignor, helped her recalibrate. Inspired by reading the life of Venerable Giuseppe Cottolengo (since canonized), founder of various charitable orders, she resolved to dedicate her life to the poor.
First, she opened her beautiful home as a shelter. Then she sold it to buy a larger property, which she renovated and made into the “Little Shelter of Divine Providence.” She joined the Franciscan Third Order and eventually started a community, the Little Sisters of Divine Providence.
As John Paul II noted at Teresa’s beatification, “The Eucharist was the heart of her spiritual life…and she wanted its image to be seen on [her community’s] religious habit.” In the Eucharist she found strength for decades of heroic endeavors. Her community spread through Italy to Brazil and Argentina. She made many trips across the ocean to visit the foundations in Latin America, making her last journey when she was seventy-three. Teresa died in Italy in 1944 at eighty-eight. She was beatified in 1998.
Heavenly Father, through the prayers of Blessed Teresa, send us holy guides and good books
to support us through our trials.
