Mystic and foundress

Blessed Elena Aiello

Blessed Elena Aiello was born in Montalto Uffugo, Calabria, in 1895 and grew up in a deeply Christian home, losing her mother while she was still young. During an illness she consecrated her life to God with vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and after serving the sick during the Spanish flu she entered the Sisters of Charity of the Most Precious Blood. Poor health soon forced her home, where she asked the intercession of Saint Rita and recovered. From 1921 until her death, mystical gifts marked her life: visions of Jesus and Mary, and on the Fridays of Lent and on Good Friday, a sweat of blood and the stigmata. Formed by this sharing in Christ's Passion, she founded the Sisters Minims of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ on 17 January 1928 with one companion, caring above all for abandoned girls, and the congregation received pontifical approval in 1948. She repeated like a litany that there is no love without suffering, and she called the Church and the world to prayer, penance, and peace. She died in Rome on 19 June 1961 and was beatified in Cosenza on 14 September 2011. Her memorial is kept on 19 June, and she continues to point souls to the Cross as the measure of the love of Jesus.

Patronage · Abandoned children and orphans