Bl. Francesco Pianzola - Founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Queen of Peace.
Born in Sartirana Lomellina, Province of Pavia, Italy, on October 5, 1881, Blessed Don Francesco Pianzola witnessed since childhood the austere difficulties agricultures faced for their living. Entering the Seminary of Vigevano, Pavia, where he was ordained to the Priesthood by Bishop Pietro Berruti on March 16, 1907, he kept in mind his humble roots, and successively spent his life working among the agricultures and factory workers, preaching and working beside them. Called affectionately, "don Niente", or "The Apostle of Lomellina", he founded the Padri Oblati Diocesani dell'Immacolata, and later the Istituto delle Suore Missionarie dell'Immacolata Regina della Pace, known as the Suore Pianzoline, on May 8, 1919, establishing the Mother House at Mortara. Pianzola passed away at Mortara on June 4, 1943, aged 61. His remains lie inside an urn at the Chapel of the Mother House of the Suore dell'Immacolata at Mortara. Declared Venerable by Pope Benedict XVI on June 26, 2006, Pianzola was beatified on October 4, 2008, by Cardinal José Saraiva Martins CMF., Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in Milan, in a ceremony attended by over 6,000 people.
GELTRUDE COMENSOLI was born in Bienno in Val Camonica, Brescia, on January 18, 1847, the fifth of ten children. On the same day of her birth, her parents, Carlo and Anna Maria Milesi, took her to the parish Church to be baptized and she was given the name of Caterina. During her childhood, Caterina experienced the joys of innocence and light-heartedness typical of that age. However, the Lord instilled within her the necessity of being intimately united to Him: she was often drawn by a strong desire to pray and meditate deeply. To those who asked her what she was doing she would answer: “I am thinking”.At the age of seven, unable to resist any longer the pressing invitation of Jesus, one day, in the very early morning, she wrapped herself in her mother’s black shawl and went to the nearby Saint Mary’s Church. Standing at the balustrade, she secretely made her First Communion. Caterina experienced a “heavenly” feeling and swore eternal love to Jesus. The child became more serious, meditative and more absorbed in the thought of Jesus present in the Eucharist who, she realized, was often left alone for many days. While still young, she became an Apostle of the Eucharist: she would have liked to take Jesus present in the Holy Sacrament onto the top of a high mountain so that everyone could see and adore Him.