Blessed Sister Maria Gabriella Sagheddu
1914-1939
My readers know I love to pick out the few women among the saints of the day because they're usually not discussed very much unless they happen to be one of the rare women that has garnered big attention throughout history. Today's choice is another of "the hidden ones" that I love to learn about, and then I pass it on to you. (She is a blessed, which is the first stage toward becoming a saint.)
The constant pains and disabilities that have grown on me and trapped me in their clutches have limited my ability to keep this habit on a daily basis. Also, there is often not a single female saint on any given day for whom the church has dedicated that day to her. I do not think it likely that there are fewer women who deserve sainthood than men. It is a comment on our religious culture that women are less noticed or highly regarded. This goes hand-in-hand with the culture, in general.
Do we expect women to be more religious and therefore we ignore them unless they're miracle machines? I don't know. Whatever the case, I like to pick out the women from the sometimes very long list of saints for each day and concentrate on those.
Another issue is that we seem to know so much less about these female saints than the male saints, making it doubly hard for women to find role models of the mystical life. Well, we'll just have to break new ground, won't we?
So, today we have Sister Maria Gabriella Sagheddu. She was a Trappist nun born in 1914, who is known as a patron of ecumenism because she was devoted to the concept of Christian unity, which strikes a chord with me, as I am keen on religious unity, such as can be experienced to whatever degree possible, given the different religious orientations. Blessed Sister Sagheddu clung to the idea that everyone would become one in Jesus Christ.
Years ago, when I was a nun in the Vedanta convent, we were all so excited to watch this series of talks with Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell called "The Power of Myth." I highly recommend it, if you can get a copy. It's probably on Youtube, come to think of it. I can't really do it justice in explaining its effect on me, but it often highlighted the similarities among different religions, which was a great education for me. We all have more in common than you might realize.
The Catholic Church is the home of Christian ecumenism, and I am sure this idea will surprise some people who think that everything that is not strictly Catholic is automatically "demonic." It is too bad, because they miss a lot. If you read the Catechism, you come across this idea that, if a person lives their life in a Christlike way, they are already part of the body of Christ, perhaps without even knowing it themselves. It makes sense, doesn't it? Truth and authenticity just shines through this concept. Jesus IS Truth, and the church recognizes this. Jesus said that those who love him follow his commandments, so, even if you don't know him and have never heard of him, if you are living his commandments, you must love him in some mysterious, mystical way. In some way, you are part of the body of Christ if you behave in a Christ-like manner.
Maria Sagheddu was one of eight children born to shepherds in a small town in Sardinia. From all accounts, she was an ordinary child, with faults and bits of brilliance combined. She was a very good student, but had a mercurial personality at times, such as when her mother told her to throw out some potato peelings after preparing the evening meal. She argued, then threw them out, then went and got them back again. Who knows what was going through her mind and whether some sense of asceticism and thriftiness was offended?
She had a tendency toward severity with the children to whom she had begun to teach the catechism when young, and the priest replaced her stick with which she used to punish them. He gave her a note to use patience, rather than the stick. Though a strong personality, she took the correction and altered her method from that time forward.
It seems a shame that she died less than 2 years after making her vows with the Trappists. She had offered herself as a spiritual sacrifice for the unification of the Christian Church during a special week dedicated to it in 1938. God took her at her word and brought her home to himself the next year.
She was only 25 when she died of tuberculosis, but it just shows us that one's mission in life is realized in God's time, long or short.
God bless us all.
Silver Rose
