At Lovere in Lombardy, Saint Vincenza Gerosa, virgin, who founded the Institute of the Sisters of Charity together with Saint Bartholomea Capitanio.
Lifespan: 1784–1847
Beatified: 7 May 1933 by Pope Pius XI
Canonized: 18 May 1950 by Pope Pius XII, Vatican Basilica
Memoria liturgica: 28 June
“He who knows the Crucified knows all”
Vincenza Gerosa
Caterina Gerosa was born at Lovere, in the province of Bergamo, on 29 October 1784, into a prosperous family, the eldest of four sisters. She was soon drawn into the work of the family shop, where she showed diligence and marked ability, having been unable to attend school on account of her frail health. Even in those years, her unassuming nature shaped a simple and ordinary spirituality, centred on the daily hearing of Mass.
The years that followed the Napoleonic invasion of Italy marked her life deeply, both through financial hardship and through the successive deaths of her father, her sister Francesca, and finally, in 1814, her mother herself. Despite all this, Vincenza accepted these trials with courageous spirit as the will of God, bearing her suffering in the silence of her heart. Through steadfast prayer she committed herself to parish life and organised a women’s oratory, offering meetings, retreats, and practical courses in domestic work.
Together with Bartolomea Capitanio, a companion she had come to know in 1824, she gave rise — not without hesitation — to a formal religious foundation dedicated to serving those in the most wretched circumstances and, above all, to the education of girls. The institute, housed at Casa de Gaia, adopted the rule of the Daughters of Charity of Antida Thouret.
After the untimely death of Capitanio, Vincenza was tempted to return to her life at home; but urged on by her spiritual director, Angelo Bosio, she consented to carry on the work, which was approved by Gregory XVI in 1840 and spread rapidly throughout Lombardy, and also into Trentino and the Veneto.
At her death on 20 June 1847, the sisters numbered 171. By the opening of the third millennium they would number some five thousand two hundred.
In the Holy Year of 1950, Pope Pius XII canonised Bartolomea Capitanio and Vincenza Gerosa together.