21, she entered the Benedictine Community in St. Peter’s Monastery and took the name Maria Adeodata ("given by God"). She made her solemn profession two years later. In the cloister, Pisani was a seamstress, sacristan, porter, teacher and novice mistress. Her charity was a benefit to her fellow nuns and to many people outside the cloister as well. Pisani wrote various works, the most well-known of which is The mystical garden of the soul that loves Jesus and Mary, a collection of her personal reflections between the years 1835 and 1843. She was abbess from 1851 to 1853 but had to retire from her duties because she suffered from heart problems. She died on 25 February 1855, aged 48, and was buried the next day in the crypt of the Benedictine monastery at Mdina. Pisani was remembered for her sanctity, love of the poor, self-imposed sacrifices, and ecstasies so complete that she was seen levitating. Veneration In 2001 she was beatified by the John Paul II, who cited as the miracle required for her beatification a 24 November 1897 incident in which the abbess Giuseppina Damiani from the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist Subiaco, Italy was suddenly healed of a stomach tumour following her request for Maria Pisani’s intervention. Pope John Paul II declared her a Blessed on 9 May 2001 at Floriana, Malta, soon followed by the unveiling of a huge portrait of the Blessed — a replica of an original oil painting commissioned in 1898 by Pietro Pace, the Archbishop of Rhodes and Bishop of Malta. The Pontiff also announced that her feast would be celebrated on 25 February, the day of her death. References 1806 births 1855 deaths 19th-century venerated Christians 19th-century Christian mystics Beatifications by Pope John Paul II Benedictine abbesses Benedictine beatified people Benedictine mystics Benedictine nuns Daughters of barons Maltese beatified people Maltese Roman Catholic religious sisters and nuns Venerated Catholics by Pope John Paul II Maltese people of Italian descent People of Campanian descent