Cecilia Eusepi

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Roman Catholic Church
Beatified17 June 2012, Piazza della Bottata, Nepi, Italy by Cardinal Angelo Amato
Feast1 October
PatronageServite tertiaries

Cecilia Eusepi (17 February 1910 – 1 October 1928) was an

Roman Catholic and a professed member from the Secular Servites.[1] Eusepi died of tuberculosis at 18 years of age, but only after her confessor advised her to keep a journal of her own life, which she titled Storia di un Pagliaccio ("Story of a Clown"), for she considered herself to be a "little clown" and "a half-stupid clown good for nothing"; she wrote that it must be her extreme weakness that appealed to God.[2]

Eusepi's beatification was celebrated in Nepi in 2012.

Life

Cecilia Eusepi was born in

Confirmation on 27 May 1917 from Bishop Luigi Olivares and her First Communion
on 2 October 1917.

Eusepi was sent to a convent school (close to a Servite convent) on 5 September 1916 and later in 1922 she joined the Servite Order as a secular member. The Cistercian nuns oversaw her education while at this convent school from 1916 until 1923 and in 1922 she became part of Catholic Action.[1] On 14 February 1922 she received the scapular at the San Tolomeo ai Servi church and assumed the name of "Maria Angela". In 1923 she received permission from the local bishop to join the order as a postulant despite her uncle and mother's objections. Eusepi studied in Rome as well as in Pistoia and Zara. From 1923 to 1926 she was among the Servite nuns in Pistoia but had to leave and go home due to tuberculosis which she was diagnosed with in summer 1926. The girl had also hoped to join the missions but her poor health prevented her from doing so and she returned home to Nepi on 23 October 1926.[2]

During her final illness her religious practice was a comfort to members of the Catholic Action movement as well as

priests often visited her and sometimes asked her for her opinion on their homilies and other things. It was then that she met the Servite priest Gabriele M. Roschini who became her confessor and spiritual director
and who instructed her to keep a journal; she started this on 29 May 1927 and ended entries on 12 September 1928 weeks before her death.

Eusepi died from tuberculosis on the night of 1 October 1928 singing songs to the

Madonna on the date that she had predicted she would die after having a dream about Thérèse of Lisieux
. On 16 March 1944 her remains were relocated to the San Tolmeo ai Servi church.

Beatification

The beatification process commenced in an informative process in

Venerable
on 1 June 1987.

The miracle for her beatification concerned the 4 August 1959 cure of Tommaso Ricci who survived what would have been a fatal traffic accident. This was investigated in a diocesan process and received C.C.S. validation on 10 March 2006; a medical board approved it on 1 October 2009 as did theologians on 12 December 2009 and the C.C.S. on 4 May 2010. Pope Benedict XVI approved this on 1 July 2010 and Cardinal Angelo Amato presided on the pope's behalf on 17 June 2012 in Nepi.[4]

The current postulator for this cause is the Servite priest Franco M. Azzalli.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Blessed Cecilia Eusepi". Saints SQPN. 1 October 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Like a good-for-nothing clown". 30 Giorni. 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2016.
  3. ^ Index ac status causarum beatificationis servorum dei et canonizationis beatorum (in Latin). Typis polyglottis vaticanis. January 1953. p. 41.
  4. ^ NULL (2010-07-01). "43 Saints' Causes Decrees, 40 From 20th Century". ZENIT - English. Retrieved 2020-09-21.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Cecilia Eusepi.
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