The Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta,
Little Daughter of the Divine Will
Biographical notes
The Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta was born in Corato in the Province of Bari,
on April 23,1865 and died there in the odor of sanctity on March 4, 1947.
Luisa had the good fortune to be born into one of those patriarchal families that still
survive in our realm of Puglia
and like to live deep in the country, peopling our farmhouses. Her parents,
Vito Nicola and Rosa Tarantino, had five children: Maria, Rachele, Filomena,
Luisa and Angela. Maria, Rachele and Filomena married. Angela, commonly called
Angelina, remained single and looked after her sister until she died.
Luisa was born on the Sunday after Easter and was baptized that same day. Her father
– a few hours after her birth – wrapped her in a blanket and carried her to the
parish church where holy Baptism was administered to her.
Nicola Piccarreta was a worker on a farm belonging to the Mastrorilli family, located
at the middle of Via delle Murge in a neighborhood called Torre Disperata, 27
kilometers from Corato. Those who know these places, set among the sunny, bare
and stony hills, can appreciate the solemnity of the silence that envelops
them. Luisa spent many years of her childhood and adolescence on this farm. In
front of the old house, the impressive, centuries-old mulberry tree still
stands, with the great hollow in its trunk where Luisa used to hide when she
was little in order to pray, far from prying eyes. It was in this lonely, sunny
spot place that Luisa’s divine adventure began which was to lead her down the
paths of suffering and holiness. Indeed, it was in this very place that she
came to suffer unspeakably from the attacks of the devil who at times even
tormented her physically. Luisa, to be rid of this suffering, turned
ceaselessly to prayer, addressing in particular the Virgin Most Holy, who
comforted her by her presence.
Divine Providence led the little girl down paths so mysterious that she knew no joys other than God and his grace. One day, in fact, the Lord said to her: “I have
gone round and round the world again and again, and I looked one by one at all
my creatures to find the smallest one of all. Among so many I found you. Your
littleness pleased me and I chose you; I entrusted you to my angels so that
they would care for you, not to make you great, but to preserve your
littleness, and now I want to begin the great work of fulfilling my will. Nor
will you feel any greater through this, indeed it is my will to make you even
smaller, and you will continue to be the little daughter of the Divine Will”
(cf. Volume XII, March 23, 1921).
When she was nine, Luisa received Jesus in the Eucharist for the first time and Holy
Confirmation, and from that moment learned to remain for hours praying before
the Blessed Sacrament. When she was eleven she wanted to enroll in the Association
of the Daughters of Mary – flourishing at the time – in the Church of San Giuseppe.
At the age of eighteen, Luisa became a Dominican Tertiary taking the name of
Sr. Maddalena. She was one of the first to enroll in the Third Order, which her
parish priest was promoting. Luisa’s devotion to the Mother of God was
to develop into a profound Marian spirituality, a prelude to what she would one
day write about Our Lady.
Jesus’ voice led Luisa to detachment from herself and from everyone. At about eighteen, from the balcony of her house in Via Nazario Sauro, she had a vision of Jesus
suffering under the weight of the Cross, who raised his eyes to her saying:
“O soul, help me!“. From that moment an insatiable longing to
suffer for Jesus and for the salvation of souls was enkindled in Luisa. So
began those physical sufferings which, in addition to her spiritual and moral
sufferings, reached the point of heroism.
The family mistook these phenomena for sickness and sought medical help. But all
the doctors consulted were perplexed at such an unusual clinical case.
Luisa was subject to a state of corpse-like rigidity – although she
showed signs of life – and no treatment could relieve her of this unspeakable
torment. When all the resources of science had been exhausted, her family
turned to their last hope: priests. An Augustinian priest, Fr. Cosma Loiodice,
at home because of the Siccardian* laws, was summoned to her
bedside: to the wonder of all present, the sign of the Cross which this priest
made over the poor body, sufficed to restore her normal faculties instantly to
the sick girl. After Fr. Loiodice had left for his friary, certain secular
priests were called in who restored Luisa to normality with the sign of the
Cross. She was convinced that all priests were holy, but one day the Lord told
her: “Not because they are all holy – indeed, if they only were! – but
simply because they are the continuation of my priesthood in the world you must
always submit to their priestly authority; never oppose them, whether they are
good or bad” (cf. Volume I). Throughout her life, Luisa was to be
submissive to priestly authority. This was to be one of the greatest sources of
her suffering. Her daily need for the priestly authority in order to return to
her usual tasks was her deepest mortification. In the beginning, she suffered
the most humiliating misunderstandings on the part of the priests themselves
who considered her a lunatic filled with exalted ideas, who simply wanted
to attract attention. Once they left her in that state for more than twenty
days. Luisa, having accepted the role of victim, came to experience a most
peculiar condition: every morning she found herself rigid, immobile, huddled up
in bed, and no one was able to stretch her out, to raise her arms or move her
head or legs. As we know, it required the presence of a priest who, by blessing
her with the sign of the Cross, dispelled that corpse-like rigidity and enabled
her to return to her usual tasks (lace-making). She was a unique case in that
her confessors were never spiritual directors, a task that Our Lord wanted to
keep for himself. Jesus made her hear his voice directly, training her,
correcting her, reprimanding her if necessary and gradually leading her to the
loftiest peaks of perfection. Luisa was wisely instructed and prepared during
many years to receive the gift of the Divine Will.
The archbishop at that time, Giuseppe Bianchi Dottula (December 22, 1848-September
22,1892), came to know of what was happening in Corato; having
heard the opinion of several priests, he wished to exercise his authority and
assume responsibility for this case. After mature reflection he thought it
right to delegate to Luisa a special confessor, Fr. Michele De Benedictis, a
splendid figure of a priest, to whom she opened every nook and cranny of her
soul. Fr. Michele, a prudent priest with holy ways, imposed limits on her
suffering and instructed her to do nothing without his permission.
Indeed, it was Fr. Michele who ordered her to eat at least once a day, even if
she immediately threw up everything she had swallowed. Luisa was to live on the
Divine Will alone. It was under this priest that she received permission to
stay in bed all the time as a victim of expiation. This was in 1888. Luisa
remained nailed to her bed of pain, sitting there for another 59 years, until
her death. It should be noted that until that time, although she had accepted
her state as a victim, she had only occasionally stayed in bed, since obedience
had never permitted her to stay in bed all the time. However, from New Year
1889 she was to remain there permanently.
In 1898 the new prelate, Archbishop Tommaso de Stefano (March 24, 1898 – 13 May
1906) delegated as her new confessor Fr. Gennaro Di Gennaro, who carried out
this task for twenty-four years. The new confessor, glimpsing the marvels that
the Lord was working in this soul, categorically ordered Luisa to put down in
writing all that God’s grace was working within her. None of the excuses made
by the Servant of God to avoid obeying her confessor in this were to any avail.
Not even her scant literary education could excuse her from obedience to her
confessor. Fr. Gennaro Di Gennaro remained cold and implacable, although he
knew that the poor woman had only been to elementary school. Thus on
February 28, 1899, she began to write her diary, of which there are thirty-six
large volumes! The last chapter was written on December 28, 1939, the day on
which she was ordered to stop writing.
Her confessor, who died on September 10,1922, was succeeded by the canon, Fr.
Francesco De Benedictis, who only assisted her for four years, because he died
on January 30, 1926. Archbishop Giuseppe Leo (January 17, 1920-January 20,1939)
delegated a young priest, Fr. Benedetto Calvi, as her ordinary confessor. He
stayed with Luisa until she died, sharing all those sufferings and
misunderstandings that beset the Servant of God in the last years of her life.
At the beginning of the century, our people were lucky enough to have Blessed
Annibale Maria Di Francia present in Puglia.
He wanted to open in Trani male and female branches of his newly founded
congregation. When he heard about Luisa Piccarreta, he paid her a visit and
from that time these two souls were inseparably linked by their common aims.
Other famous priests also visited Luisa, such as, for example, Fr. Gennaro
Braccali, the Jesuit, Fr. Eustachio Montemurro, who died in the odor of
sanctity, and Fr. Ferdinando Cento, Apostolic Nuncio and Cardinal of Holy
Mother Church. Blessed Annibale became her extraordinary confessor and edited
her writings, which were little by little properly examined and approved by the
ecclesiastical authorities. In about 1926, Blessed Annibale ordered Luisa to
write a book of memoirs of her childhood and adolescence. He published various
writings of Luisa’s, including the book L’orologio della Passione, which
acquired widespread fame and was reprinted four times. On October 7,1928, when
the house of the sisters of the Congregation of Divine Zeal in Corato was
ready, Luisa was taken to the convent in accordance with the wishes of Blessed
Annibale. Blessed Annibale had already died in the odor of sanctity inMessina.
In 1938, a tremendous storm was unleashed upon Luisa Piccarreta: she was publicly
disowned by Rome
and her books were put on the Index. At the publication of the
condemnation by the Holy Office, she immediately submitted to the authority of
the Church.
A priest was sent from Rome by the ecclesiastical authorities, who asked her for all her manuscripts, which Luisa handed over promptly and without a fuss. Thus all her writings were hidden away in the secrecy of the Holy Office.
On October 7, 1938, because of orders from above, Luisa was obliged to leave the
convent and find a new place to live. She spent the last nine years of her life
in a house in Via Maddalena, a place which the elderly of Corato know well and
from where, on March 8, 1947, they saw her body carried out.
Luisa’s life was very modest; she possessed little or nothing. She lived in a rented
house, cared for lovingly by her sister Angela and a few devout women. The
little she had was not even enough to pay the rent. To support herself she
worked diligently at making lace, earning from this the pittance she needed to
keep her sister, since she herself needed neither clothes nor shoes. Her
sustenance consisted of a few grams of food, which were prepared for her by her
assistant, Rosaria Bucci. Luisa ordered nothing, desired nothing, and instantly
vomited the food she swallowed. She did not look like a person near death’s door,
but nor did she appear perfectly healthy. Yet she was never idle, she spent her
energy either in her daily suffering or her work, and her life, for those who
knew her well, was considered a continuous miracle.
Her detachment from any payments that did not come from her daily work was
marvelous! She firmly refused money and the various presents offered to her on
any pretext. She never accepted money for the publication of her books. Thus
one day she told Blessed Annibale that she wanted to give him the money from
her author’s royalties: “I have no right to it, because what is written
there is not mine” (cf. Preface of the L’orologio della Passione, Messina,
1926). She scornfully refused and returned the money that pious people
sometimes sent her.
Luisa’s house was like a monastery, not to be entered by any curious person. She was
always surrounded by a few women who lived according to her own spirituality,
and by several girls who came to her house to learn lace-making. Many religious
vocations emerged from this “upper room”. However, her work of
formation was not limited to girls alone, many young men were also sent by her
to various religious institutes and to the priesthood.
Her day began at about 5.00 a.m., when the priest came to the house to bless it and
to celebrate Holy Mass. Either her confessor officiated, or some delegate of
his: a privileged granted by Leo XIII and confirmed by St. Pius X in 1907.
After Holy Mass, Luisa would remain in prayer and thanksgiving for about two
hours. At about 8.00 a.m. she would begin her work which she continued until
midday; after her frugal lunch she would stay alone in her room in meditation.
In the afternoon – after several hours of work – she would recite the holy
Rosary. In the evening, towards 8.00 p.m., Luisa would begin to write her
diary; at about midnight she would fall asleep. In the morning she would be
found immobile, rigid, huddled up on her bed, her head turned to the right, and
the intervention of priestly authority would be necessary to recall her to her
daily tasks and allow her to sit up in bed.
Luisa died at the age of eighty-one years, ten months and nine days, on March 4,
1947, after a fortnight of illness, the only one diagnosed in her life, a bad
attack of pneumonia. She died at the end of the night, at the same hour when
every day the priest’s blessing had freed her from her state of rigidity.
Archbishop Francesco Petronelli (May 25, 1939-June 16, 1947) archbishop at the
time. Luisa remained sitting up in bed. It was impossible to lay her out and –
an extraordinary phenomenon – her body never suffered rigor mortis and
remained in the position in which it had always been.
Hardly had the news of Luisa’s death spread, like a river in full spate, all the
people streamed into her house and police intervention was necessary to control
the crowds that flocked there day and night to visit Luisa, a woman very dear
to them. A voice rang out: “Luisa the Saint has died“. To contain all the people who were going to see her, with the permission of the civil authorities and health officials, her body was exposed for four days with no sign of corruption. Luisa did not seem dead, she was sitting up in bed, dressed in white; it was as though she were asleep, because as has already been said, her body did not suffer rigor mortis. Indeed, without any
effort her head could be moved in all directions, her arms raised, her hands
and all her fingers bent. It was even possible to lift her eyelids and see her
shining eyes that had not grown dim. Everyone believed that she was still
alive, immersed in a deep sleep. A council of doctors, summoned for this
purpose, declared, after attentively examining the corpse, that Luisa was truly
dead and that her death should be accepted as real and not merely apparent, as
everyone had imagined.
Luisa had said that she was born “upside down”, and that therefore it was
right that her death should be “upside down” in comparison with that
of other creatures. She remained in a sitting position as she had always lived,
and had to be carried to the cemetery in this position, in a coffin specially
made for her with a glass front and sides, so that she could be seen by
everyone, like a queen upon her throne, dressed in white with the Fiat on
her breast. More than forty priests, the chapter and the local clergy took part
in the funeral procession; the sisters took turns to carry her on their
shoulders, and an immense crowd of citizens surrounded her: the streets were
incredibly full; even the balconies and rooftops of the houses were swarming
with people, so that the procession wound slowly onwards with great difficulty.
The funeral rite of the little daughter of the Divine Will was celebrated in
the main church by the entire chapter. All the people of Corato followed the
body to the cemetery. Everyone tried to take home a keepsake or a flower, after
having touched her body with it; a few years later, her remains were translated
to the parish of Santa Maria Greca.
On November 20, 1994, on the Feast of Christ the King, in the main church,
Archbishop Carmelo Cassati, in the presence of a large crowd including foreign
representatives, officially opened the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of
God, Luisa Piccarreta.
Important dates
1865
– Luisa Piccarreta was born on April 23, the Sunday after Easter, in Corato, Bari, to Nicola Vito and Rosa Tarantino, who had five daughters: Maria, Rachele, Filomena, Luisa and Angela. A few hours after Luisa’s birth, her father wrapped her in a
blanket and took her to the main church for baptism. Her mother had not suffered
the pangs of labor: her birth was painless.
1872
– She received Jesus in the Eucharist on the Sunday after Easter, and the
sacrament of Confirmation was administered to her on that same day by
Archbishop Giuseppe Bianchi Dottula of Trani.
1883
– At the age of eighteen, from the balcony of her house, she saw Jesus, bent
beneath the weight of the Cross, who said to her: “O soul! Help me!“.
From that moment, solitary soul that she was, she lived in continuous union
with the ineffable sufferings of her Divine Bridegroom.
1888
– She became a Daughter of Mary and a Dominican Tertiary with the name of Sr.
Maddalena
1885-1947
– A chosen soul, a seraphic bride of Christ, humble and devout, whom God had
endowed with extraordinary gifts, an innocent victim, a lightening conductor of
Divine Justice, bedridden for sixty-two years without interruption, she was a
herald of the Kingdom of the Divine Will.
March 4, 1947
– Full of merits, in the eternal light of the Divine Will she ended her days
as she had lived them, to triumph with the angels and saints in the eternal
splendor of the Divine Will.
March 7, 1947
– For four days her mortal remains were exposed for the veneration of an
immense throng of the faithful who went to her house to have a last look at
Luisa the Saint, so dear to their hearts. The funeral was a realm triumph;
Luisa passed like a queen, borne aloft on shoulders among the lines of people.
All the clergy, secular and religious, accompanied Luisa’s body. The funeral
liturgy took place in the main church with the participation of the entire
chapter. In the afternoon, Luisa was buried in the family Chapel of the Calvi
family.
July 3,1963
– Her mortal remains were definitively laid to rest in the Church of Santa Maria Greca.
November 20, 1994 – Feast of Christ the King:
– Archbishop Carmelo Cassati officially opened the Beatification Cause of the Servant of GodLuisa Piccarreta in the principal church of Corato, in the presence of a hugecrowd of people, locals and foreigners.
2005
– Archbishop Giovanni Battista Picchierri,
current Archbishop of Trani. It is he who requested that the Cause of
Beatification of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta be continued.
ARCHDIOCESE
Trani – Barletta – Bisceglie –
Nazareth
70059 TRANI – VIA BELTRANI, 9 –
TEL.0883-583498
Trani, June 4, 2005
COMUNIQUE
The “Divine Will” has guided the Archdiocese, in this last decade, for the completion of the works regarding the process of the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of God LuisaPiccarreta. The Diocesan Postulation announces having completed this journey.
It communicates that on the days of the 27th, 28th, and 29th of October 2005 it will celebrate the 2nd International Congress with the conclusion of the diocesan process.
The Pious Association Luisa Piccarreta Little Children of the Divine Will*, in Corato, has been charged with performing the job of Secretary for the celebration and welcome of guests. Later the program of the celebration will be published in a definitive way.
May Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist guide us as He has guided His Servant Luisa.
The Vicar General
(His Grace Mons. Savino
Giannotti)
* Pious Association Luisa
Piccarreta Little Children of the Divine Will
Referent: Sister Assunta Marigliano
70033 Corato (BA) – Via Nazario Sauro, 27 – Tel. +39.080.8982221
www.luisalasanta.com
– e-mail : pia.ass.luisalasanta@libero.it
Come Holy Spirit, Come Supreme Will,
down to reign in Your Kingdom on earth
and in our hearts!
Come Holy Spirit, Come Supreme Will,
down to reign in Your Kingdom on earth
and in our hearts!
Come Holy Spirit, Come Supreme Will,
down to reign in Your Kingdom on earth
and in our hearts!
