Bruna Pellesi was born in 1917 near Modena, Italy, the youngest of nine children. As a teenager she helped raise six small nephews and nieces after two of her sisters-in-law died.
Bruna Pellesi was born in 1917 near Modena, Italy, the youngest of nine children. As a teenager she helped raise six small nephews and nieces after two of her sisters-in-law died. Leaving them to become a nun was painful.
In 1940 she joined the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Christ, taking the name Maria Rosa of Jesus, and taught primary school. In 1945 she fell ill with tuberculosis. She spent the remaining twenty-seven years of her life in sanatoriums, offering her suffering and encouraging other patients. She died in 1972 and was beatified in 2007.
She had expected an active life of teaching. Instead most of her religious life was spent sick in bed, which she came to accept as her vocation.
The Church has declared Bruna Pellesi Blessed.