Maria Francesca of Jesus Rubatto

Anna Maria Rubatto was born in Carmagnola, in the northern Italian region of Piedmont, on 14 February 1844. By the time she was 19 years old, she had lost both her father and mother. She moved to Turin where she dedicated her life to works of charity, caring for the sick and the marginalized. One summer day in 1883 in Loano, as she was leaving church, she heard the cries of a young construction worker who had been hit on the head by a rock that had fallen from a house under construction. Anna Maria immediately helped him, and a Capuchin friar, Angelico da Sestri Ponente, who was there, asked her if she would be the director of a new religious order, for which that building was being constructed. After an intense period of discernment, Anna Maria decided to be a part of the new religious family that was being formed. The Institute of ...