April 18: Blessed Savina Petrilli
Dedicated to the service of orphans, needy young women, and the poor—for whom she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor of Saint Catherine of Siena.
Savina was born in Siena on August 29, 1851, to Celso and Matilde Vetturini. As a child, she experienced illness and, from birth, had a deformed foot. At the age of nine, she began attending the school of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Jerome. She chose Don Francesco Ballati, a canon of the Cathedral, as her spiritual director; he guided her along her path of growth in faith. She was unable to attend higher education, but she studied the Catechism and taught it in her parish to children preparing for their First Holy Communion. At fifteen, she joined the Association of the Daughters of Mary, of which she later became president.
In 1869, together with a group of fellow citizens, she was received in a private audience by Pope Pius IX, who greeted her with the words: “Walk in the footsteps of Saint Catherine and follow her example.” The young woman took these words as a calling.
On December 8, 1873, with the permission of the Archbishop of Siena, in her family home and together with three companions, she founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor of Saint Catherine of Siena. In January 1874, she welcomed the first poor child—a girl so hungry and malnourished that people called her “Three Ounces.” This marked the beginning of a new charitable mission, because for Savina the poor were the “sacrament of Christ.”
Soon, the Petrilli home became too small to house the sisters and the children; thus, on September 7, 1874, with five companions and several orphans, she moved into a larger apartment.
With the guidance of the Dominican Blessed Bishop Pio Alberto Del Corona, she wrote the Constitutions for the Sisters of the Poor of Saint Catherine of Siena. Throughout her life, she devoted herself to the formation of the religious sisters and to the charitable works of the Congregation.
In 1881, she opened a new house in Onano near Viterbo, but it had to be closed due to the disobedience of the sister sent there. She also suffered because of the intrusiveness of Canon Ballati, who considered himself a co-founder of the Congregation, though in reality he was only their confessor. The Archbishop ordered a canonical visitation to ensure that the Institute had no problems.
During her life, she made vows “to refuse nothing voluntarily to the Lord,” of “perfect obedience” to her spiritual director, “not to complain deliberately in external and internal sufferings,” and of “complete abandonment” to the will of the Father.
From 1890 onward, Savina suffered from fibromas throughout her body. In 1903, she sent the first missionaries to Brazil and, in 1909, also to Argentina. In 1912, she visited the missions founded in the Americas. She died on April 18, 1923, and two years later her remains were transferred to the Church of the Visitation in Siena. On April 24, 1988, she was proclaimed Blessed by Pope John Paul II.