At Casoria near Naples in Campania, Italy, Blessed Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception (Adelaide) Brando, virgin, who devoted her life to the Christian education of children and founded the Congregation of the Sisters, Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, by which she greatly fostered adoration of the Holy Eucharist.
Lifespan: 1856–1906
Beatified: 27 April 2003 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized: 17 May 2015 by Pope Francis, St. Peter’s Square
Memoria liturgica: 20 January
“The love of God and love of neighbour are two branches that spring from the same trunk.”
Life and Works
Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception Brando (in the world, Adelaide Brando) was born in Naples on 1 May 1856 to Giovanni Giuseppe and Caterina Marrazzo, and was baptised the following day at the Parish of San Liborio.
From her earliest years she set out on a path of mortification and holiness, declaring even as a child the programme of her life: “I want to become a saint at whatever cost.” She was drawn to sacred images, especially those of the Infant Jesus. She received the Eucharist for the first time on 8 December 1864, at the age of eight. From that day the Eucharist stood at the centre of her thoughts, and she aspired to become a victim consecrated to the Lord in a spirit of reparation.
Thus began a life centred on the Eucharist. “Oh,” she would say, “if only I could found a work aimed at repairing the offences and insults that Jesus receives from the ingratitude of men … Oh, if only Jesus would will it!” A decisive step came when she consecrated herself before the Infant Jesus on Christmas night, 1868.
She entered several religious communities in pursuit of the ideal of her life, but failing health obliged her to return to her family each time. Nonetheless, the project of founding an institute of Sisters of Adoration matured within her, and in 1880, together with a few companions, she began Perpetual Adoration in Naples.
She saw Jesus in the Eucharist and felt that her place was beside the holy tabernacle, to offer herself, together with Jesus the Host, as a perpetual victim of reparation and expiation.
She found great help and consolation in Blessed Ludovico da Casoria and in the Venerable Servant of God Michelangelo Longo da Marigliano.
Although she carefully concealed herself from the eyes of the world, several young women, drawn by her uncommon virtues, asked to be received into her community.
After various vicissitudes, on 22 November 1884, at the invitation of the parish provost of Casoria, Canon Domenico Maglione — brother of Cardinal Luigi Maglione, Secretary of State under Pius XII — she moved with her companions to Casoria and took up residence on the Maglione property. With the assistance of the same provost, Maria Cristina at this time drew up a rule of religious life.
On 16 August 1903 the institute took the official name “Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Sacrament.”
On 2 November of the same year, together with nineteen other young women, she made her profession of perpetual vows.
The purposes of the work founded by Brando are:
- perpetual adoration and the promotion of divine worship;
- the formation of young women from the humblest social classes;
- courses of spiritual exercises for adolescents;
- catechetical and scholastic instruction;
- care of orphans and various other works of charity.
She spent her nights in a chair from which the tabernacle was visible — her pole of attraction — so as to remain in loving dialogue with Jesus, her sweet paradise. She declared: “I have found what I sought with such ardent desire: now I possess it and shall never let it go … This is the place of my rest … here I shall dwell … here I shall rest henceforth.”
Though weak in body, she was strong in her love for Christ, from whom she would never be separated: “He desires to be greatly loved by us who bear the name of Victims. We have had the immense honour of being called Expiatory Victims; well then, we must truly be so!”
The way of life of Mother Maria Cristina is explicable only in the light of the Eucharist. She wished her community to be essentially a “Eucharistic community.” Her true identity was to be a victim of Jesus in the Sacrament.
Born into a prosperous family, poverty was her glory; she despised every comfort, to enjoy the beatitude of the poor in spirit.
Faithful to the love of Christ, she lived in perfect chastity from her youth.
She imitated Christ in his obedience to the will of the Father.
She thus lived poverty, chastity, and obedience as the expression of a perfect following of Christ, and would tell her novices: “Make yourselves holy and pray for me, for I have such great need of it.”
She was a teacher of humility, performing the washing of feet for her fellow sisters on Holy Thursday, and would say: “Always bear in mind, my daughters, that humility is the foundation on which the spiritual edifice rests; there can be no holiness in a soul without humility. Humble souls are the delight of God.”
She mortified herself with fasting and penances to maintain temperance, and was prudent in speech and in correction, preserving always the spirit of charity.
She died on 20 January 1906, urging the sisters of the community to be holy and to observe the Rule and the virtues with exactitude. She exhorted them: “My daughters, you must help one another, bear with one another, make allowances for one another.”
And she added: “We must be Victims in deed, even to giving our lives for Jesus. We must therefore make ourselves holy — and holy by necessity — because Jesus wants us to be holy, for only in this way can we expiate and repair the offences that Jesus receives from the world.”
Following the example and teaching of the Foundress, the community of Sisters has grown not only in Italy but in other countries, maintaining fidelity to the charism of being Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Sacrament, of promoting love for the Eucharist and adoration, and of caring for the formation of children and young people.
Course of the Cause
As her reputation for holiness grew, eminent churchmen — among them Cardinal Luigi Maglione and Cardinal Alfonso Castaldo, both from Casoria — together with the clergy, civil authorities, and the faithful at large, petitioned the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples to open the canonical process for the beatification of Mother Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception.
Between 1927 and 1940 the Ordinary Processes were conducted concerning the reputation for holiness, the writings, and the absence of cult.
On 4 May 1972 the cause of beatification and canonization was formally introduced in Naples in the presence of Cardinal Corrado Ursi.
a) Towards Beatification
On 2 July 1994 John Paul II promulgated the decree on the heroic virtues.
In 1992 a miracle occurred in the Philippines through the intercession of Mother Maria Cristina.
The diocesan inquiry was conducted in Manila in 1995, and the validity of that process was recognized by a decree of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 29 March 1996.
The Medical Board, meeting on 15 February 2001, declared the cure to have been rapid, complete, lasting, and scientifically inexplicable. The Congress of Theological Consultors on 2 October 2001 and the Session of Cardinals and Bishops recognized that this miraculous cure had occurred through the intercession of Mother Brando.
On 20 December 2001, in the presence of Pope John Paul II, the decree on the miracle was promulgated. The same Supreme Pontiff celebrated the beatification on 27 April 2003.
b) Towards Canonization
For the purposes of canonization, a tribunal was established in Naples on 14 April 2011 for the canonical investigation of an alleged miracle involving an unhoped-for pregnancy brought happily to term.
On 20 March 2013 the Medical Board acknowledged the inexplicability of the case.
On 24 June 2014 the Special Congress of Theological Consultors of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints met to consider the theological aspects of the alleged miracle and gave a unanimous affirmative judgment, recognizing in the event under consideration a miracle wrought by God through the intercession of Blessed Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception.
The Cardinals and Bishops at the Ordinary Session of 16 September 2014 judged the case under examination to be a true miracle attributed to the intercession of the Blessed.
The Holy Father Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the Decree on the miracle.