Bl. Maria Pia Mastena

Maria Pia Mastena was born on December 7, 1881 in Bovolone, near Verona, Italy. She asked to enter religious life at fourteen but was only accepted in 1901, by the Sisters of Mercy of Verona, and in 1904 she made her vows as Sister Passitea Maria of the Child Jesus. She spent more than nineteen years teaching in the village of Miane. Throughout her life she was devoted to the Eucharist and to the Holy Face of Jesus, a devotion centred on the suffering face of Christ.

In 1927 she spent seven months with the Cistercian nuns at Veglie, then left. She went on to found a new congregation, the Religious of the Holy Face, to spread that devotion and serve the poor and sick. It was canonically recognised in 1936 and placed under the Holy See in 1947. She died in Rome in 1951 and was beatified in 2005.

The Church has declared Maria Pia Mastena Blessed.

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