Saint Who?
Saints Who Teach Us about Purgatory
Saint Maria Francesca Gallo
Religious († 1791) Feast: October 6
She was christened Anna Maria Rosa Gallo. When she was sixteen years old, her father began to arrange her marriage. But when she told her father, who was known for his bad temper, that she had already decided to become a bride of Christ, he was so upset that he beat her and locked her in her bedroom. Eventually, her mother and a priest were able to change his mind.
As soon as her father relented, she became a Third Order Franciscan and took the name Maria Francesca of the Five Wounds. Although she wore a habit, she lived in her family’s home for twenty-two years and as a recluse in the household of a diocesan priest for the final thirty-eight years of her life.
Maria Francesca received many mystical gifts. When she prayed the Stations of the Cross on Fridays, she experienced Christ’s pains and even received the stigmata. On three occasions at Mass, witnesses saw the Sacred Host inexplicably fly into her mouth from the priest’s hands or the altar. She was persecuted by her father and other family members for many years for her piety. Yet she offered up that pain, along with her own voluntary penances, for the poor souls, who came to her in visions and asked for her prayers.
Loving God, grant us the grace to forgive those
who offend and reject us
