Bl. Luigi Novarese

Luigi Novarese was born in 1914 in Casale Monferrato, Piedmont, the youngest of nine children of a farming family. His father died when he was nine months old. At nine he developed bone tuberculosis, then considered incurable, and his mother sold land to pay for treatment. In hospital he played the flute to cheer up other patients.

At seventeen he asked the Salesians to pray for his healing and promised to serve the sick if he recovered. He did recover, though one leg stayed shorter. He became a priest and worked in the Vatican's Secretariat of State. He founded the Volunteers of Suffering in 1947 and later the Silent Workers of the Cross, which help sick and disabled people see themselves as active members of the Church, not just people to be cared for. He died in 1984 and was beatified in 2013.

Legend and tradition. He said that Mary told him in a dream that he would be healed in May and become a priest.

Years of serious illness in childhood gave him his life's work: helping sick people find meaning and purpose in their suffering.

Luigi Novarese was beatified in 2013.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.