World

SAINT PROFILE: MAGDALEN OF CANOSSA

1774 – 1835; Feast: April 10

By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE     4/11/2016

This foundress, born to a noble family in Verona, Italy, lost her father at age 5 and was abandoned by her mother when she remarried. Choosing religious life over an advantageous marriage, Magdalen first joined the Carmelites, but left when she saw that their strict rules of enclosure would prohibit her charitable works. She began a new community, the Canossian Daughters of Charity, in 1799 by bringing two poor girls into her own home. The institute spread throughout Italy, and Magdalen helped found an order of priests and a third order for laypeople. Canossians minister today in Italy, Latin America and the Philippines. Magdalen, who was canonized in 1988, famously said, “Those who love are never tired, since love knows no burden.”