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Advent - 3rd Day

"As the deer longs for the source
of living water.
So to you, Lord, I fly and I'm coming."

Saint Veronica Giuliani Mystic and Stigmatist - Poor Clare Capuchin Nun

Saint Veronica Giuliani receives the Stigmata

 
One day, while praying in her cell, Sister Veronica had a vision of Jesus.

He was carrying His Cross on His Shoulder. He asked her, “What do you wish?” She replied, “That Cross and I wish it for You, for Your Love.”  He took the Cross from His Shoulder and placed it on her shoulder. It was too heavy! She fell under the weight of it, and her Lord lifted her.

Still another time, Our Lord appeared to Veronica, covered with open sores, a Crown of Thorns on His Head. Blood spilled from His precious Body, as He said, “See what sinners have done to Me.” Veronica wrote in her Diary:  “Seeing the great agony that my Lord was in, I begged Him to give Me His Crown. He placed it on my head; I suffered so much, I thought I was dying.”

Another time, Jesus came and showed Saint Veronica Giuliani a Chalice full of liquid.  She wrote that it seemed as if the liquid was on fire. The Lord told her, “If you want to be Mine, you must taste this liquid for My Love.” 

 

She later wrote that when He placed just a few drops of the liquid on her tongue, she was filled with such indescribable bitterness and sadness, she thought she would die. Her tongue became dry and from that day on, she could not taste anything.

On Christmas Day, the Infant Jesus appeared to Veronica. He sent an arrow deep into her heart. When she awakened, she found her heart bleeding.

The burning flame roaring inside her heart was so painful, she could not rest day or night. He told her He wanted her heart to bear the marks of His Wound; He said, her heart had to feel the lance and her feet and hands, the nails He felt on the Cross.  

(Below is taken from "Saint Veronica Giuliani", Bob and Penny Lord's book, "Visionaries, Mystics and Stigmatists")
 
Veronica receives the Stigmata

One day, while praying in her cell, Sister Veronica had a vision of Jesus. He was carrying His Cross on His Shoulder. He asked her, “What do you wish?” She replied, “That Cross and I wish it for You, for Your Love.” He took the Cross from His Shoulder and placed it on her shoulder. It was too heavy! She fell under the weight of it, and her Lord lifted her.

Still another time, Our Lord appeared to Veronica, covered with open sores, a Crown of Thorns on His Head. Blood spilled from His precious Body, as He said, “See what sinners have done to Me.” Veronica wrote in her Diary:
“Seeing the great agony that my Lord was in, I begged Him to give Me His Crown. He placed it on my head; I suffered so much, I thought I was dying.”
Another time, Jesus came and showed Veronica a Chalice full of liquid. She wrote that it seemed as if the liquid was on fire. The Lord told her, “If you want to be Mine, you must taste this liquid for My Love.” She later wrote that when He placed just a few drops of the liquid on her tongue, she was filled with such indescribable bitterness and sadness, she thought she would die. Her tongue became dry and from that day on, she could not taste anything.

On Christmas Day, the Infant Jesus appeared to Veronica. He sent an arrow deep into her heart. When she awakened, she found her heart bleeding. The burning flame roaring inside her heart was so painful, she could not rest day or night. He told her He wanted her heart to bear the marks of His Wound; He said, her heart had to feel the lance and her feet and hands, the nails He felt on the Cross.
Our Lord chose to make Veronica as much Himself as is possible, and what better way than to share His Passion with her. He had asked her many times what she wished, and she had replied, His Cross. Well on April 5, 1697, Veronica had a vision of Jesus Crucified, accompanied by His Mother Our Lady of Sorrows as she appeared at the foot of the Cross on Golgotha. Veronica’s heart, as with her Savior before her, was pierced. She experienced the crowning of thorns, the scourging, the crucifixion, her own death and that of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mother Abbess Mary Catherine told us that the other nuns could see the impressions of the crown of thorns on her head through her veil, the blood at times dripping from her eyes because of the deep wounds inflicted by the long sharp thorns. Sealed with this stigmata, Veronica's body became an indelible sign of the Lord’s total communion with her, one of everlasting unity and love. She wrote:

“In an instant, I saw five shining rays shooting out from His Wounds, coming towards me. I watched as they turned into little flames. Four of them (the flames) contained the nails, and the fifth one contained the lance, golden and all aflame, and it pierced my heart. The nails pierced my hands and feet.”

Veronica took the crucifix off the wall in her cell and embraced it saying:
“My Lord, pains with pains, thorns with thorns, sores with sores, here I am all Yours, crucified with You, crowned with thorns with You, wounded with You.”
Veronica takes up the Cross

Veronica received the stigmata. Now it was time for her to take up the Cross! She could not help Jesus carry His Cross, that dark and infamous day He walked to Calvary. He had told her, she would be the bride of the Crucified Savior. Now to be completely one with Him as His bride, in imitation of her Spouse, she would carry her cross each evening. At those times she would wear a robe, lined with sharp long thorns which pierced her body, especially doing damage to the shoulder upon which she carried the cross.13

Laden down by the weight of the cross, she staggered as she tried to maintain her balance. She would walk through the monastery’s orchard or within the monastery itself until she was to the point of collapse. When she completed her Way of the Cross, she would then climb up many steps to a painting, in the convent, of St. Francis receiving the stigmata, where she would flagellate herself. At other times, she would levitate up into the tree in the cloister gardens, the other nuns saying she looked like a little bird in flight.

At times Veronica would take a very heavy log and carry it across her shoulders as a cross beam to reenact more authentically Our Lord carrying the cross to Calvary. There are crosses there till today, which the nuns carry on Good Friday.
Our dear Lord asked Veronica to fast for three years. Upon receiving permission from her Superior, she fasted for the next three years on bread and water alone.

St. Veronica Giuliani's Crowned With Thorns by Jesus

Pietro Tedeschi (circa 1750-died after 1805)

Coronazione di spine di S.Veronica / Crowning of Thorns of St Veronica

Oil on canvas

Chiesa delle Cappuccine, Mercatello sul Metauro

Province of Pesaro and Urbino

Tedeschi was born in Pesaro. In 1777 he went to Rome and remained there until his death.

He painted a large number of religious works for churches, monasteries, convents and the like and they can be seen in Bologna, Macerata, Ascoli PIceno, Viterbo, Pesaro and Imola as well as many other places

Many of his commissions came through the good offices of his patron Cardinal Alessandro Albani who was a patron of many artists from The Marche

The subject of the painting above was the subject of the Pope`s latest address on Wednesday last about great woman mystics: St Veronica Giuliani (Veronica de Julianis) (1660 – July 9, 1727)

She has been described as one of the greatest of the Catholic mystical writers. All the bishops of Umbria in Italy have petitioned the Pope to have her declared as a Doctor of the Church

She spent fifty years of her life in the enclosed Capuchin Poor Clare Convent in Città di Castello: novice, cook, nurse, mistress of novices and then, finally, abbess

She had revelations and received the stigmata. We would not know about Saint Veronica and her experiences and thought if it was not for the fact that after she received the stigmata, her confessor ordered her to keep a diary and write out her experiences. She did so for thirty years. The result was 22,000 pages which was published as «Tesoro nascosto» ("Hidden Treasure") published in ten volumes between 1825 and 1928.

The details of her life are quickly told in The Catholic Encyclopaedia of 1913

In his speech the Pope said that the saint`s writings should be used as a guide for going deeper into Scripture. St. Veronica Giuliani, he says, brought Scripture to life in herself.

He said that she had a "markedly Christ-centered and spousal spirituality," and that "Hers is the experience of being loved by Christ, the faithful and sincere Spouse, and of wanting to correspond with an ever more involved and impassioned love. She interpreted everything in a key of love, and this infuses in her a profound serenity. Everything is lived in union with Christ, for love of him, and with the joy of being able to demonstrate to him all the love of which a creature is capable."

He said that she had an "intense and suffering love for the Church, and the twofold way of prayer and offering. The saint lived from this point of view: She prays, suffers, seeks 'holy poverty,' as 'dispossessed,' loss of self, precisely to be like Christ, who gave his whole self."

On the question of her being a guide to Scripture, the Pope pointed out that her writings were filled with direct and indirect Biblical quotations. Her mystical experiences were always related to the events celebrated in the Liturgy`s readings from Scripture. Her experience was rooted and anchored in Scripture. She lived Scripture. Scripture became her life.

For more about St Veronica see The St Veronica Giuliani website

An English language biography of the saint is in the Internet Archive: The lives of S. Veronica Giuliani, Capuchin nun : and, of the Blessed Battista Varani of the Order of S. Clare (January 1, 1874) by Filippo Maria Salvatori, 1740-1820

The Pope`s speech in the General Audience in full is as follows:

"Dear brothers and sisters,

Today I would like to present a mystic who is not of the Medieval Age; it is St. Veronica Giuliani, a Capuchin Poor Clare. The reason is that December 27 is the 350th anniversary of her birth. Citta di Castello, the place where she lived the longest and where she died, as well as Mercatello -- her native country -- and the Diocese of Urbino celebrate this event joyfully.

Veronica was born precisely on Dec. 27, 1660, in Mercatello, in the valley of Metauro, to Francesco Giuliani and Benedetta Mancini. She was the last of seven sisters, an additional three of whom embraced the monastic life. She was given the name Ursula. She lost her mother at 7, and her father moved to Piacenza as superintendent of customs of the duchy of Parma. In this city, Ursula felt a growing desire to dedicate her life to Christ.

The call was ever more pressing, so much so that at 17 she entered the strict cloister of the monastery of the Capuchin Poor Clares of Citta di Castello, where she would remain the whole of her life.

There she received the name Veronica, which means "true image," and, in fact, she would become a true image of Christ Crucified. A year later she made her solemn religious profession.

The journey began for her configuration to Christ through much penance, great suffering and certain mystical experiences linked with the Passion of Jesus: the crowning of thorns, the mystical espousal, the wound in her heart and the stigmata. In 1716, at 56, she became abbess of the monastery and was confirmed in this role until her death, which occurred in 1727, after a most painful agony of 33 days that culminated in a profound joy, so much so that her last words were:

"I have found Love, Love has allowed Himself to be seen! This is the cause of my suffering. Tell it to everyone, tell it to everyone!" (Summarium Beatificationis, 115-120).

She left her earthly dwelling on July 9 for her encounter with God. She was 67 years old; 50 of those years she spent in the monastery of Citta di Castello. She was proclaimed a saint on May 26, 1893, by Pope Gregory XVI.

Veronica Giuliani wrote much: letters, autobiographical reports, poems. However, the main source to reconstruct her thought is her "Diary," begun in 1693: a good 22,000 handwritten pages, which cover an expanse of 34 years of cloistered life.

The writing flows spontaneously and continuously. There are no cancellations or corrections, punctuation marks or distribution of the material in chapters or parts according to a pre-established plan. Veronica did not wish to compose a literary work; instead, she was obliged to put her experiences into writing by Father Girolamo Bastianelli, a religious of the Filippini, in agreement with the diocesan bishop Antonio Eustachi.

St. Veronica has a markedly Christ-centered and spousal spirituality: Hers is the experience of being loved by Christ, the faithful and sincere Spouse, and of wanting to correspond with an ever more involved and impassioned love.

She interpreted everything in a key of love, and this infuses in her a profound serenity. Everything is lived in union with Christ, for love of him, and with the joy of being able to demonstrate to him all the love of which a creature is capable.

The Christ to whom Veronica is profoundly united is the suffering Christ of the passion, death and resurrection; it is Jesus in the act of offering himself to the Father to save us. From this experience derives also the intense and suffering love for the Church, and the twofold way of prayer and offering. The saint lived from this point of view: She prays, suffers, seeks "holy poverty," as "dispossessed," loss of self (cf. ibid., III, 523), precisely to be like Christ, who gave his whole self.

In every page of her writings Veronica entrusts someone to the Lord, strengthening her prayers of intercession with the offering of herself in every suffering. Her heart dilated to all "the needs of the Holy Church," living with longing the desire of the salvation of "the whole world" (ibid., III-IV, passim).

Veronica cried out:

"O sinners ... come to Jesus' heart; come to the cleansing of his most precious blood ... he awaits you with open arms to embrace you" (Ibid., II, 16-17).

Animated by an ardent charity, she gave care, understanding and forgiveness to the sisters of the monastery. She offered her prayers and sacrifices for the Pope, her bishop, priests and for all needy persons, including the souls in Purgatory. She summarized her contemplative mission in these words:

"We cannot go preaching around the world to convert souls, but we are obliged to pray continually for all those souls who are offending God ... particularly with our sufferings, that is with a principle of crucified life" (Ibid., IV, 877).

Our saint conceived this mission as a "being in the middle" between men and God, between sinners and Christ Crucified.

Veronica profoundly lived participation in the suffering love of Jesus, certain that "to suffer with joy" is the "key of love" (cf. ibid., I, 299.417; III, 330.303.871;IV, 192). She evidences that Jesus suffers for men's sins, but also for the sufferings that his faithful servants had to endure in the course of the centuries, in the time of the Church, precisely because of their solid and coherent faith.

She wrote:

"The Eternal Father made him see and feel at that point all the sufferings that his elect would have to endure, his dearest souls, that is, those who would know how to benefit from his Blood and from all his sufferings" (ibid., II, 170).

As the Apostle Paul says of himself:

"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church" (Colossians 1:24).

Veronica even asks Jesus to be crucified with him.

"In an instant," she wrote, "I saw issue from his most holy wounds five shining rays; and all came to my face. And I saw these rays become as little flames. In four of them were the nails; and in one of them was the lance, as of gold, all red hot: and it pierced my heart, from one side to the other ... and the nails went through the hands and feet. I felt great pain; but, in the very pain I saw myself, I felt myself all transformed in God" (Diary, I, 897).

The saint was convinced she was participating already in the Kingdom of God, but at the same time she invoked all the saints of the Blessed Homeland to come to her aid on the earthly journey of her self-giving, while awaiting eternal blessedness; this was the constant aspiration of her life (cf. ibid., II, 909; V, 246). In regard to preaching of the time, not rarely centered on "saving one's soul" in individual terms, Veronica shows a strong "sense of solidarity," a sense of communion with all brothers and sisters on the way to heaven, and she lives, prays and suffers for all.

The earthly, penultimate things, instead, although appreciated in the Franciscan sense as gift of the Creator, were always relative, altogether subordinate to the "taste" of God and under the sign of a radical poverty. In the communio sanctorum, she clarifies her ecclesial donation, as well as the relationship between the pilgrim Church and the heavenly Church.

"All the saints," she wrote, "are up there through the merits and the Passion of Jesus; but they cooperated with all that the Lord did, so that their life was all ordered ... regulated by (his) very works" (ibid., III, 203).

In Veronica's writings we find many biblical quotations, at times indirectly, but always precise: She shows familiarity with the sacred text, from which her spiritual experience is nourished. Revealed, moreover, is that the intense moments of Veronica's mystical experience are never separated from the salvific events celebrated in the liturgy, where the proclamation and hearing of the Word of God has a particular place.

Hence, sacred Scripture illumines, purifies and confirms Veronica's experience, rendering it ecclesial.

On the other hand, however, precisely her experience, anchored in sacred Scripture with an uncommon intensity, guides one to a more profound and "spiritual" reading of the text itself, to enter into the hidden profundity of the text. She not only expresses herself with the words of sacred Scripture, but she also really lives from these words, they become life in her.

For example, our saint often quotes the expression of the Apostle Paul: "If God is for us, who is against us?" (Romans 8:31; cf. Diary, I, 714; II, 116.1021; III, 48). In her, the assimilation of this Pauline text, her great trust and profound joy, becomes a fait accompli in her very person:

"My soul," she wrote, "was connected to the divine will and I was truly established and fixed in the will of God. It seems to me that I could never again be separated from this will of God and turn to myself with these precise words: nothing will be able to separate me from the will of God, not anxieties, or sorrows, or toil, or contempt, or temptations, or creatures, or demons, or darkness, and not even death itself, because, in life and in death, I will everything and in everything, the will of God" (Diary, IV, 272).

Thus we have the certainty that death is not the last word, we are fixed in the will of God and so, really, in everlasting life.

In particular, Veronica shows herself to be a courageous witness of the beauty and the power of Divine Love, which draws, pervades and inflames her. It is crucified Love that imprinted itself on her flesh, as in that of St. Francis of Assisi, with the stigmata of Jesus.

"My Bride," the crucified Christ whispers to me, "the penances you do for those who are in my disgrace are dear to me ... Then, detaching an arm from the cross, he made a sign to me to draw near to his side ... and I found myself in the arms of the Crucified. What I experienced at that point I cannot recount: I would have liked to remain always in his most holy side" (ibid.., I, 37).

This is also an image of her spiritual journey, of her interior life: to be in the embrace of the Crucified and thus to be in Christ's love for others.

Also with the Virgin Mary, Veronica lived a relationship of profound intimacy, attested by the words she heard Our Lady say one day and which she reports in her Diary:

"I will make you rest on my breast, you are united with my soul, and from it you were taken as in flight to God" (IV, 901).

St. Veronica Giuliani invites us to make our Christian life grow, our union with the Lord in being for others, abandoning ourselves to his will with complete and total trust, and to union with the Church, Bride of Christ; she invites us to participate in the suffering love of Jesus Crucified for the salvation of all sinners; she invites us to fix our gaze on Paradise, the goal of our earthly journey, where we will live together with so many brothers and sisters the joy of full communion with God; she invites us to nourish ourselves daily from the Word of God to warm our hearts and give direction to our life. The last words of the saint can be considered the synthesis of her passionate mystical experience:

"I have found Love, Love has let himself be seen!" "

(Above from http://idlespeculations-terryprest.blogspot.com/2010/12/st-veronica-giuliani.html)

Saint Veronica Giuliani, Lover of the Crucified Jesus

Saint Veronica wrote a lot under the obedience about her mystical experiences. On the April 30, 1700,on the feast of Saint Catherine of Siena Saint Veronica Giuliani received the mystical vision of Jesus Crucified, Saint Catherine of Siena  and many other saints. As many other times, under the obedience to her spiritual director, she had to reject all of her visions for fear that those experiences could not have come not from God but from the devil who would come to deceit her. She wrote in her journal: “I trusted myself whole heartedly to God so that he would free me from all kind of deceitfulness that may come from the devil, and also that He may give me a true pain for my sins. Suddenly I got that grace and while I was with this pain for my sins it seemed to me, that  I saw coming from the wounds of Jesus five splendorous rays that came towards me, one stopped inside my  heart and the others in my hands and feet.

 I experienced a deadly pain, it seemed to me that a sharp lance penetrated my heart, and my hands and feet with a thick nail. This pain bestowed on me a flame of love toward the divine love and it seemed to me that it was like a magnet that drew myself towards Him. In that moment  more communications were given to me and it seemed to me that the Lord wanted that I took that saint ( Saint Catherine) as my teacher and that I should learn from her the zeal that she had for the salvation of the souls, her deep humility and her other virtues; but the last two  I would had to learn in a special way.

I was in this for long period of time, and those rays were, as I had said before, above me. And it seemed to me that this experience had never happened to me within such a long period of time. While I was with this pain it seemed  to me that those saints were praying for me. I greatly desired that they will obtain for me a true knowledge of myself, and also knowledge of all  that is in me that is not in accordance with God’s will and that hinder me from the unity with Him in the way that He desires.

I also had inside light  about some personal defects:  my imperious talk, my luck of  solicitous charity and humility in all my deeds, and other similar things that I did every day”.

Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727)

Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727)

It is not unusual for mystics to be fluent with the pen. Veronica

Giuliani indeed was no exception. Her manuscript Diary

contains twenty two thousand pages in which she relates the

dramatic and intense events of her journey towards God. The

saint wrote it “with mortification and embarrassment ... for the

sake of simple obedience.” However, the truth be told, it could

also be said that she wrote with great effort and loss of sleep since she

usually wrote these things through the course of the night, depriving the

body of its needed rest.

In practice the Diary ranges over a period of the sixty seven years of the

saint’s life. Starting with her memories of early childhood – and these are

discussed in five special tracts - the Diary continues up to 25 March 1727

when, as Veronica says, Our Lady said, “Time for a full-stop.” And her hand

put down the pen forever.

Veronica was born in Mercatello sul Metauro on 27 December 1660 and

was baptised Orsola the following day. He father commanded the local

garrison with the rank of ensign. Seven children were born to him and his

wife Benedetta Mancini. Two of children died quite young. Orsola was the

last, and like the other daughters, grew up within a very devout

environment created by her mother in particular. Her mother was deeply

religious and sensitive. She left her little brood of children and teenagers

on 28 April 1667, at only about forty years of age.

Before dying she gathered her daughters around. Showing them the Cross

she assigned a wound to each of them. Orsola, the smallest, received that

of His side. This action says a lot about the faith of the Giuliani family

where prayer in common, harmony and the practice of works of mercy

nourished everyday life. During the process of Veronica’s canonization

someone added, “In the Giuliani household they read the life of a saint

every evening.”

As in Mercatello so also in the years 1669-1672 at Piacenza where the girls

followed their father who had obtained the office of superintendent of taxes

in the service of the Duke of Parma, and then after their return to

Mercatello.

Of this happy period of her life Veronica will remember the pranks, the

goodness of those who surrounded her, the tender devotion of the prayers

to Our Lady and the Baby Jesus, the first attractions to the religious life,

the long and exasperating resistance with which her father opposed the

fulfilment of this ardent wish of hers.

Francesco Giuliani had allowed his other four daughters to enter the

monastery freely. However, he was not prepared to cede to the request of

Orsola, his dearest, the most intelligent, and the one in whom he was the

most interested, the most spoiled and pampered of the daughters. He

wanted her to marry and stay with him. However Orsola had already

decided when she was nine years old and it was up to the old ensign to

capitulate to her immovable determination. So it was that on 28 October

1677, while she had not yet turned seventeen, Orsola was clothed in the

religious habit of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Città di Castello, taking the

symbolic name of Veronica.

But whose ‘true image’ or faithful copy will she be? Veronica’s enthusiasm,

an expression of her young age – for a long time in the monastery they

called her “la bambina” (the baby), did not countenance any doubts. With

all her being she longed to become a true image of Christ crucified.

On entering the Capuchin Poor Clares she brought her inestimable

spiritual riches: innocence, the habit of prayer, boundless enthusiasm, a

determination to live the life in earnest, and a large quantity of candour

that did not envisage any obstacles whatsoever to her burning thirst for

religious perfection. Veronica is ready and determined to reach holiness

heroically, as did her models, the saints, whose deeds she had learned to

understand since her childhood. The monastery is the gym that will enable

her to become generous like them. In her view she must run in pursuit of

them along the tracks of prayer and penitence, contemplation and

suffering.

Veronica continued on this line for around twenty years, amid obstacles

and misunderstandings, resolved to succeed at all costs. Around her in the

monastery everything happened within the greyness of the ordinary day to

day life. However, her journey towards God was marked with important

milestones: I November 1678, religious profession; 4 April 1681, Jesus

places the crown of thorns on her head; 17 September 1688 she is elected

novice mistress, an office she will fill until 18 September 1691; 12

December 1693 she begins to write her Diary; from 3 October 1694 until

21 March 1698 she was novice mistress again; Good Friday, 5 April 1697

she receives the stigmata, and in the course of the same year she was

denounced to the Holy Office and in 1699 was deprived of active and

passive voice.

These are dates and events, which in themselves allow us to intuit that

something mysterious was happening within Veronica to which her

monastic world reacted with trust and admiration and also with open

warfare at the expense of her poor “humanity” subjected to privations,

difficulties and humiliations of every kind. The account of her sufferings,

whether those sought by her or imposed upon her, is somewhat horrifying.

Neither the modern hagiographer nor modern reader can manage to justify

or even understand such behaviour. In a certain sense Veronica herself will

renounce them when, after finally having surpassed that stage of her

fearful self-discipline, she spoke of “the crazy things that love had me do.”

From the moment she received the stigmata (1697), these “crazy things”

became less frequent and disappeared completely in 1699. From that time

Veronica will be satisfied with “suffering the difficulties and torments that

she saw and knew to be given her directly by the hand of God in order to

purify her still more.” This was a golden rule that she never failed to instil

in the young sisters: she wanted them “to moderate their desire to do

penance.” 

Veronica’s natural inclination meant she took more the part of Mary rather

than that of Martha. In her first years spent in the monastery she believed

she could quench her thirst for perfection by immersing herself in

contemplative meditation. Her repugnance for menial domestic tasks and

the lowly services of charity also pushed her in that direction. Then to fill

her sense of emptiness and discontent, she chose to serve. Moreover she

saw manual work as an aesthetical practice, like a penance, This unleashed

in her an indomitable revulsion because until that moment it had never

entered her mind that carrying out those actions would be more useful and

more altruistic than withdrawing to her cell in contemplation and

mortification. And yet she wondered if contemplation alone could resolve

the moral problem of life. This led her to argue within herself about which

had the greater spiritual value, the active life or the contemplative life.

And here we come across a revealing phrase: “you could have remained in

the world to do good and you would have been even more useful to others.”

Fortunately she quickly concluded that remaining within the monastery can

also be useful for others. So when speaking about living a life hidden in

God she writes, “I have to do this in prayer, in the things that happen,

everywhere; it is not by withdrawing into the cell but in the midst of the

entire community that I have to practise solitude with Jesus ... It seems to

me that what God requires of me becomes evident through works.”

Veronica had gained a practical insight, that the most efficient way to find

and adore God consists in seeking Him with sincerity in the midst of a

hundred different concerns. She will follow this practical rule of thumb

until her dying day and convincingly instil this in her sisters. 

On 7 March 1716 the Holy Office revoked itsdisciplinary measure imposed upon her. This allowed Veronica to participate with full rights in the elections for the various monastic offices. Then in fact a few weeks later, on 5 April, the sisters elected her abbess, the office that she held until her death. Those would be fourteen years of uninterrupted leadership, years blessed by God. They are years bathed in the light of marvels. Her martyrdom of love had meant that she had to endure many things. Love had kept her humanity in unmistakable suffering.

On 6 June 1727 her physical sufferings were sharpened even further. For thirty three days she passed through a triple purgatory – in body, mind and spirit. As we read in an account in her process, this holy woman called together many of her novices and young sisters and said, “Come here, for Love has let himself be

found: this is the cause of my suffering. Tell the others, tell them all.” Then

she asked to hear a song in praise of the Incarnation of the Word. During

the singing she broke into tears, “Who among you would not weep at such

Love?” Then with the obedience of the confessor who assisted her she fell

calm and breathed her last. It was the dawn of 9 July 1727. 

Given her reputation for holiness, the diocesan bishop Alessandro

Francesco Codebò opened the diocesan process five months later on 6

December. Veronica was beatified on 17 June 1804 and canonised on 26

May 1839. 

This translation is based on an article by MARIANO D’ALATRI in Sulle orme dei Santi, 2000, p.145-153